April 23, 2023, column from the Amarillo Globe-News:

'The Father' gives us reminder to have compassion amid confusion

By Mike Haynes

                It isn’t because I’m old enough for senior discounts myself. I’ve felt this way as long as I can remember.

                And I’ve been guilty of it, too. Frustration sometimes gets the better of a person.

                But it still bothers me.

Jenny Whisenhunt and Jeffrey Pickens starred in the Amarillo

Little Theatre production of "The Father." (Shaie Williams

photo for the Amarillo Globe-News)  

                With three family members, I was blessed to be in the audience of “The Father,” a dramatic play produced by the Amarillo Little Theatre that ends with a matinee at 2:30 p.m. today. Maybe I shouldn’t compare the performance of Jeffrey Pickens, who played 80-year-old Anthony, to that of illustrious actor Anthony Hopkins, who was brilliant in the role in the 2020 movie version. But Pickens’ spot-on portrayal of a man struggling with dementia left us with the same quiet sense of sadness that Hopkins’ depiction did.

                The play is effective because of its outstanding cast and staging but also because most of us have known family or friends plagued by some level of memory loss. At least some aspects of the story are familiar to us.

                Maybe the most disturbing scene in “The Father” is one in which a man is abusive to Anthony, accusing him of disrupting the lives of the man and of Anthony’s daughter, Anne. The man tells Anthony he is selfish for requiring Anne to take care of him – and shockingly, he repeatedly slaps “the father” in the face.

                I haven’t seen that in real life, but I do know that it is easy to forget patience when dealing with a person of any age whose physical limitations cause them to move too slow or whose mental deficiencies keep them from responding quickly enough or appropriately in a conversation. Often, family or caregivers get irritated too easily when a person doesn’t hear as well as they used to.

                “The Father” gives us an inside look at things from Anthony’s perspective. It shows incidents such as his daughter bringing home chicken from the store and his misplacing his watch in repeated scenes and out of order chronologically because events and people are all jumbled up in his mind. Of course, the play reminds us, his confusion is not intentional or even because he doesn’t care about people around him, but because he can’t help it.

                People live their own lives, and their parents aren’t always a high priority. In Anne’s case, she is concerned about her father’s welfare and goes out of her way to care for him. But in Anthony’s twisted perspective, she is trying to control his life. And he, too, complicates the situation by accusing her of not loving him while he cruelly tells her that his other daughter, who apparently has died years before, is his favorite.

                Despite failings on both sides of the equation, those of us who are not suffering from mental or physical limitations should take the lead in patience – and especially in the case of our parents or other elders. Sure, tough decisions about nursing homes and taking away car keys have to be made, but they can be made with compassion.

                The apostle Paul knew that in the first century. He wrote to the Christians at Corinth, “Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful.” (1 Corinthians 13:4-5, English Standard Version)

                In addition to the fifth commandment, “Honor your father and mother,” the Old Testament writers certainly gave guidance regarding our treatment of parents: “Listen to your father who gave you life, and do not despise your mother when she is old.” (Proverbs 23:22, ESV) and “He who does violence to his father and chases away his mother is a son who brings shame and reproach.” (Proverbs 19:26, ESV)

                When our frustration mounts, we would do well to remember Proverbs 14:29: “Whoever is slow to anger has great understanding, but he who has a hasty temper exalts folly.” (ESV)

                Watching “The Father,” either the film version or at Amarillo Little Theatre, is confusing for the audience, reflecting the bewildering perception of a man who has lost much of his ability to interpret what he sees in front of him. We can be confused in life, too, not knowing how to handle difficult situations.

                No matter the age of people in our lives, though, one wise saying covers pretty much all circumstances: “So whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets.” (Matthew 7:12, ESV)