My brother Bill told me something on his last visit that I want to pass along to you. Patience is what you do, not what you feel.
If you are a caregiver, you know the feeling he was answering. You are not doing enough. You are not understanding enough. Heck, some days you are embarrassed by how short your fuse runs.
As some of you know, Gail and I live in the mountains of North Carolina, a long way from family. We built a house in Florida, lived in it less than a year, and sold it furnished. The mountains suited us better, so we moved into what used to be our vacation home.
Gail no longer remembers our most recent Florida house. She remembers the one we lived in for 15 years before it. Lately she asks what happened to our furniture. She asks where her Christmas ornaments are. I explain what we kept and what we sold, and a few days later the questions come back.
Her questions are not the kind most of you know, where “Would you like something to drink?” comes up six times in ten minutes. Hers land like she just found a hole in her life. Where are all my CDs?
Gail collected music for years. I moved it from CDs to an iPod, and now we just ask our Echo. So I had an idea, and it might be a good one for you.
I opened Claude, an AI assistant, and asked it to interview Gail and me by voice. It named artists from the years Gail loved music most. Gail said yes or no to each one. The more she answered, the better Claude got at guessing what she likes. We ended up with 66 artists and groups.
Then I had Claude sort the list by category onto two sheets of paper, with instructions at the top for playing her music on our Echo. I printed two copies and taped them to cardboard so they would not get lost. I told Gail she has her whole music collection back, right at her fingertips. She was happy. We spent about two hours on it together, and it was a good two hours.
Later my neighbor stopped by, and I showed him the list. Gail had no idea what it was. Around the same time, Bill and his wife Dot came up, and we all drove the mountains to do what every tourist does up here in October: look at the colors. In Robbinsville we passed a big rock by the highway with NELL on it. Dot said there was a movie about a woman found living alone in the woods up here, who never learned to speak regular English.
The next afternoon, when Gail and I lay down for her nap, I found the movie. Jodie Foster stars in it, and we watched it together. Gail had no memory of the three-hour drive or of Robbinsville. She did not follow the movie, and I stopped to explain it every ten minutes, maybe more. It was exasperating.
It was the end of a long day. I had been cook, cleaner, finder and reminder since breakfast, and all I wanted was to sit and enjoy a movie. Every time Gail asked, I hit pause, answered, and started it again. Then she asked again.
Bill could see it on my face. He told me I was amazingly patient. I told him I sure do not FEEL patient. He said, “But you are. Patience is what you do, not what you feel.”
What makes this hard is that Gail and I spent our whole marriage making memories together. We can still make them. The memories are just for me now, but the events themselves are joy for both of us.
The Nottely River runs in front of our house. Once the water passes, it is gone. Those two hours with the music list were like that water. We had them, and they went on downstream. There will be more water coming. I am sad about it and happy about it at the same time.
Gail loved building that music list, every minute of it, even though she does not remember it.
What you feel inside and what you show are two different things. Be proud of the patience you show, even on days you do not feel any.
Here is something to try this week. If your wife or your father loved music, sit down together and build a list. Name artists from the years they loved, let them say yes or no, and print it big. Tape it to cardboard. If you want the prompt I gave Claude to run the interview, email me at gregg@atenda.care and I will be happy to send it to you.
Gregg
Get a letter like this every Tuesday.
