He said he’s lonely

We were having dinner last night to celebrate my daughter’s 12th birthday. I sat next to my Dad and asked him how he was doing. “Great”, he said. I rarely consider this a complete answer to a complicated question. “No really - what’s it like to be 70 years old right now?”.

“I’m lonely” he said. And my heart broke in a million pieces. My driven, perfectionist type A thought generator believes nobody in my orbit should ever be lonely, and if they are it’s because I’m not doing enough, which leads to an instant explosion of thoughts about how busy I am and how I can’t possibly fix his loneliness. But I’m not quite sure he was asking me to do so.

“But I’m ok. I have my dog and my horses to keep me company.” Of course, yes, that’s my Dad. But I’m still spun up in my own thought tornado. Time is slipping by. I never have enough of it. He has both too much and too little at the same time.

When I can get my brain to move from “not enough” of just about anything and into “what is happening at his very moment that I can control” it offers up better solutions.

“Would you be interested in picking up the kids after school once a week or so?” I asked.

“No, it’s too far for me”. Strike one for trying to match his loneliness with my own childcare needs.

“Can you pick a weeknight that we can plan to get together each week for dinner?”.

“Let me think about that, probably?” And there it is. We got to a probably, a semblance of a plan, and lightyears farther along to solving for loneliness to the extent a weekday dinner can do so.

If we can get out of denial about aging parents and surf through the mental drama - just on the other side of that are simple steps that help us create space for them.

Dinner. I’m sure you can guess which one is my Dad?