lively.com

Grandfather (88) has apparently never seen or used a telephone before My grandfather is 88 years old and living home alone for the time being, I am his exclusive primary caregiver and provider these days. Despite his age and health issues he manages just fine 90% of the time and his mind functions well enough that I'm still comfortable with having him be independent. As long as he's just lazing about at home and all his needs are taken care of, he's A-okay; I live about 30 minutes away but I see him multiple times a week and I have a camera system installed on his property as well so I can keep an eye on him. The only exception to this is his ability, or inability, to operate a telephone. Despite him being a flight engineer in the air force back in the day and having a rudimentary cell phone of his own when I was growing up, all of a sudden nowadays he acts like he's never seen a telephone before in his entire life. The concept of dialing out to call someone is totally alien to him. Obviously he can't live alone if he doesn't have a telephone, so I've done my best to teach him and it's yielded mixed results. He has a [Jitterbug flip phone](https://www.lively.com/phones/jitterbug-flip2/), they don't make them any simpler than this. I managed to teach him how to call me and how to answer calls through sheer memorization, he somehow cannot grasp the idea of using the buttons to follow along on the screen (remember, he had a cell phone in the mid 2000's). Recently I've installed a V-Tech branded landline phone in his living room, and all he has to do is press the button with my photo on it to call me; he uses it to call me often, but any other function of the phone is inscrutable to him. I keep telling him that it's a telephone, a **telephone**, and he just gives me a blank stare. Recently I made the mistake of leaving him a message on his landline phone, and now the blinking light is driving him crazy. I told him it's just the answering machine/voicemail and I'll fi