Describe the biggest commitment you have ever made
My grandfather moved to Rio De Janeiro in the 1950s, looking for economic opportunity in the big city. He worked at Linhas Aéreas, the national carrier, and on the lower-middle class salary of about $500 a year, he became the head of his family, supporting his brother, his bed-ridden mother, widowed sister-in-law and her two children in addition to his own wife and daughter, all in a tiny one-bedroom flat. Today, however, most of the family is scattered across the world; my grandparents, now in their late 80s, live alone in Rio.
Five years ago, I made a commitment to help my grandfather harness new technology to stay independent. He had been diagnosed with early-stage Parkinson’s Disease, making it hard for him to sign cheques, go to the bank or even speak over the phone. My mother suggested that he try using the internet to function more easily, and he was eager to learn. However, while my grandfather is curious, he gets very irritable when things don’t go his way; my mother soon found that she didn’t have the patience to help him learn. However, I did.
I understood his need for self-reliance and his frustration with his tremors, I had the technical knowledge to help him learn new technologies, and I am naturally patient and hyper-organized. So I made a commitment to work with my grandfather on the internet and new technologies every Sunday evening, until he was fully independent again.
The first afternoon, I came to his house and we began with the basics – I showed him how to use the keyboard and we set up his email account. Then, it was net banking and accounts with the utility companies. After detailed notes (with drawings) and daily practice for a few months, he was easily paying his bills online. One day, he called and said he wanted to set up a Facebook account. And what was Skype? Then he bought a smartphone: every week, new apps miraculously appeared on that phone, which he denied having downloaded. Then he bought a Kindle. A few months later, an iPad.
My plan to make him independent had morphed into something very different: I was now his tech support – for life.
Five years ago when I started this process, I was still in college and the commitment was relatively easy. But it became harder after I joined KPMG Brazil, working 70-hour weeks and studying on weekends for my Conselho Regional de Contabilidade (Brazilian CPA) degree. But my grandfather had been incredibly patient and committed when I was a child, and I could not give him any less than he gave me, so the commitment remained.
I still visit my grandfather every Sunday, but often we spend only a few minutes on tech support and more discussing local politics or the inevitable grilling about when I plan to get married. At 88, he is still curious and determined to keep up with the changing world. I have become his link to the future.