My father is elderly and lives alone except for the 3 or 4 days / week during which I visit. When I was growing up he was usually working overtime, and we never got into the habit of being together without other people around. He says he enjoys talking to me, sometimes for a couple of hours at a time, during which time the subject of war always comes up. He's anxious about war, almost to the point of despair. What he wants more than anything else is to die before he has to leave his house.
I've told him about Fatima, but he isn't interested in that, or indeed in anything to do with the Church. I try to concentrate on positive things but the subject always returns to war, and his fear of the Russians (for which I can't blame him since he was a victim of communism, which forced him to immigrate).
He reads google news and one other news site (from Estonia). When Estonia joined NATO he was overjoyed. Whenever I've mentioned in passing that revenge is forbidden by the 5th Commandment, he's shown resentment. He would probably like to see Russia destroyed. He told me last week that he only just found out that his favorite Estonian news site also has a Russian version that's completely different and 'full of propaganda'. He doesn't read Russian but he says he knows this because that's what the Estonian page said. Anything that seems to side with Putin, or apologize for him in any way, is suspect in his eyes. He believes it must be communist propaganda. I don't blame him, I just don't know how to help calm him down.
I recently have told him what (little) I know about things like the MSM version of 911 being preposterous, and the Jєωs owning all of the MSM and most of the banks, etc. Also I've told him that Putin is no less a liar than Obama, and probably much less of one than Obama, but so far he sort of idolizes Obama. This kind of information is very helpful to me because it makes such good sense. I wish I could help my father make sense of these things too, but it seems impossible.
He's liberal, and protestant. He used to be somewhat conservative, but he's changed with the times.
While he's talking what seems like nonsense to me I find it almost impossible to either keep a pleasant expression on my face, or even a concerned one. I often roll my eyes involuntarily, and when he sees this he seems to get more deeply depressed. Of course I'm sorry when this happens, and I've confessed regularly about this.
About 2 weeks ago I resolved not to argue while he was going on about 'Putin's propaganda machine', and to wait at least 10 minutes after he stopped talking about that before I either changed the subject or left the room. It was almost an hour later that he finally got tired. It was amazing to see him calm down by just having a good rant. I was very calm too, having resolved not to talk.
It would probably be good for me to resolve not to argue, and to keep my eyes from rolling up. This kind of simple thing might be all I need. I do love him, but he drives me crazy too!
I try to pray constantly when these difficult times arise, but I haven't mastered serenely praying, while he's yelling at me about something or other. He never aims his yelling at me personally, but I know he thinks I'm either stupid or crazy or both, from the way he talks to me. I'm the only family member who never had any kind of career, and when he's not talking about Ukraine or war, he's talking about some very successful person or other that he's known personally. I don't know how I'm supposed to react. I often ask questions to show interest, but he often doesn't know the answer. He can barely even answer simple questions about any of these people he tells me about. He doesn't seem to know them very well, although they've lived close by for decades, in some cases. After a while it seems useless to talk at all, so I let him go on and on, and that seems to make him most happy.
The thing I'd really like help with is how to listen to someone like this without being rude in any way. Most of the things he talks about, he's talked about countless times already.
Sometimes I manage to be very cheerful no matter what he's talking about, by remembering something funny. But it seems cruel to be cheerful when he's so miserable, so I don't do that very much anymore.