The Algorithm Suggested I See My Father More. It's Been Right So Far

The life-planning app, from my data and his age, calculated that I have a limited number of visits left with my father. It suggested I see him more. I have been seeing him every Sunday. The app has been right about everything so far, and I hate it, and I love it.

The app was for my finances, and it got my health data, and it got my father's age, because I listed him as a dependent. It ran the model, and it produced a number, and the number was the number of visits I had left if I kept my current pace, and the number was smaller than I had believed, and the app suggested, gently, that I see him more often.

I called him that night. He was surprised. I went the next Sunday, and the Sunday after, and the Sunday after that. We watch cricket, and he tells me the same stories, and I have started to hear them, which is different from listening to them.

The app has been right about everything so far. It was right that I would not call if it did not tell me to. It was right that the Sundays would matter. It was right that the number was smaller than I thought. I hate that it is right, because I hate that I needed a spreadsheet to tell me to see my father, and I love that it is right, because I am seeing my father.

Here is the thing I cannot tell anyone: I used to visit twice a year, out of duty, and I called it busy. The app did not call it anything. It just showed me the number, and the number did the arguing, and the arguing was the truth I had been avoiding.

My father asked me, last Sunday, why I had started coming every week. I almost told him about the app. I am glad I did not. I told him I wanted to. It was true, by then. The wanting had arrived, the way it does when you stop postponing, and the app had opened the door, and I had walked through, and the door is the only thing I will ever thank a spreadsheet for.

I am keeping the Sundays. I am not keeping the app. I have deleted it, because I do not want to know the number, and because I have started to live in the way it suggested, which is the only way it could be right about, and because my father and I have cricket, and the cricket is not in the model, and it is the only number that matters.