I lost my mum about 18 months ago. It was quite sudden and unexpected and now I find myself trying to stay close to my one remaining parent.
I'm sure I can't be the only one with a father with limited social skills. It's the old joke of Dad picking up the phone & just saying "Oh hello, yes fine, do you want your mum?" That's pretty much how phone calls would have gone before she went then I would chat with mum for h o u r s and she'd fill me in about Dad too.
I am one of 6 children. When Mum died they had only just (6 weeks 
) moved back to the Northern seaside town they were from. 4 siblings have stayed in the SE town where Dad worked until he retired about 3 years ago so about a 3 hr drive and I'm about 1.5 hrs away (one is abroad).
Dad is now 69 and has had to manage retirement, widowhood and a change of home in quite a short time so there has been lots of activity and 'things to arrange' and I think it's taken until about now for us all to realise that it's getting harder and harder to stay close with him now he's settled.
He is in a sort of luxury apartment where people keep themselves to themselves and I think that suits him. He was always terrible at social skills. He is highly intelligent (was a scientist) and very logical and must seem very rude to outsiders as he just can't make small talk so seems to be blanking people (yes, we definitely think he's somewhere on some spectrum of extreme personality types!). With family he is very very quiet but also kind, gentle, funny and wise. We do adore him and he lets us hug him after we have made it into a kind of joke. I have seen him get very anxious when he knows he has to talk to someone new or make a phone call so advising he joins a social club would not work and he would hate it.
He is very skilled with IT and has several computers & every bit of consumer gadgetry you could want. He spends his time going on incredibly long walks - about 10 miles every day and is a bit obsessive about his health. He pretty much survives on nuts and berries and is whip thin. He watches TV and does puzzles, Braintraining, wordjong, crosswords. He has lots of money (huge pension, £100s of Ks in bank)but is bizarrely frugal, not mean, just thrifty)
We all miss Mum loads and I suppose we are looking for Dad to fill some kind of gap for us but we DO understand he's not like she was and would leave him quite alone if that's what he wanted. In the mum years his house would have been busy all the time and he seemed content to watch the children (11 grandchildren) running around and be fed and looked after and disappear when it all got too noisy.
We think he does miss people though. He admits he doesn't speak to anyone else at all apart from us when we call but even when we call he mostly answers with one word and never asks questions so it's like pulling teeth. The reason for this post is that I have just called him and he said he does feel 'slightly strange' trying to fill his days and is not sure how to fill some of the hours. I arranged a visit and he said he was really looking forward to it and it was great as he had another visit from my sister the following week so that would 'keep him going'.
My 4 UK sibs and I are trying to visit every 2-3 months each so Dad sees someone fairly often (They can't afford more as flat is small so we need a hotel and then the petrol and time off work). He has gone to their town on the train and back for the day twice (won't stay anywhere but his own home).
He is easiest to talk to when he's given a problem to solve like sorting IT problems or investments so that can be a 'way in'.
Does anyone have similar experience? How do you stay close? I was wondering if anyone knows of any kind of online game, like scrabble or something where he can have a go, then me, and keep a game going over the net so he can at least have daily interaction. My DH has scrabble on his iPad but it's an apple thing and I can't find same for windows.
Between me and DH we have lost our two mums and two grans in the last few years and Dad is all we have left.