The Accidental Voice

“Pay It Forward” is a movie in which a young boy, who believes in the basic goodness of people, decides to try to get as many as he can to do good.  Instead of paying a favor back, he asks them to pay it forward and, in that, do something for someone else.

A boy with a drum, wanting to give something to a very important person of his time, but having very little, decides all he can give is his music.  It is one of the best gifts.

“Seven Pounds” is a movie in which Will Smith stars as an IRS agent who, due to a haunting secret, decides to change the lives of seven people he does not know.

And, finally, there is the story of the young girl who gives her last peso to buy a cage for a bird with a broken wing.  A king comes to town.   People from miles around come to honor him with gifts, but the girl, in helping the bird, has left herself with very little.  She visits this king anyway, apologetically telling him she has nothing to give.   He simply asks her to open the door of the cage and out flies the bird.  It flies up to the rafters and from its throat issues a song for which there are no words.

History, literature and music are full of tales like this.  Sometimes trite, sometimes filled with irony (check out “Gift of the Magi”  by O. Henry), sometimes just a story for it’s own sake.  Someone decides to do a good deed to help someone or give a gift even if it requires giving something of themselves.  Self sacrifice for the betterment of another.  Regardless of whether or not these stories represent specific meaning or characters to you, they are heart-warming and a pleasure to know for anyone.

Unfortunately, what we hear and read about in the media and sometimes what we actually see with our own eyes during this time of year doesn‘t necessarily jibe with the pleasant emotions these stories make us feel.  In the reality of everyday life, we hear few stories of loving kindness and personal sacrifice compared to those of mayhem in stores, money spent or made, shootings, murder trials and pop stars’ transgressions.

We see trite signs admonishing others to remember the true meaning of a particular holiday.  Yet they are surrounded by plastic, over-sized candles and nylon blow-up Disney characters.   All the focus is on giving, but not in the way that goes deep and requires actual emotional work.  It’s giving as an afterthought.  It’s giving the way the marketers want it.  And when the marketers are in control, there’s something seriously janky going on.

Bah, humbug, right?  Wrong.  It’s out there.

I am an observer this time of year.   We celebrate a day/set of days that is different from most everyone else in December and so find ourselves a little on the outside looking in.  Speaking with a friend the other day about the holidays and how he celebrates with his family,  he related how he and his wife raise about a thousand dollars a year with which to purchase gift certificates for food. They take them down to the mission in the large city nearby and hand them out to the unfortunates.  Those folks that wait each day for the mission to open so they can once again get a hot meal, a warm place to rest, perhaps hear a kind word.

My friend has a secret, too.  A secret he has told few people.

Only until relatively recently I have always thought Black Friday meant a dark day in which people fought and jostled and set aside their character to buy, buy and buy some more.  It represented the side of the final days of a year that were unpleasant, cold and superficial.  A day when being friendly takes a back seat to being first.

Then I found out it was just about money.   Retailers getting into the black for the year.  A concept dating back to the forties just after the war had ended and the economy was in need of a boost.  Don’t misunderstand.  Commerce is important and store owners and their employees have to make a living, too.  For them Black Friday is something to look forward to (mostly).  But ignorance really is bliss sometimes and even though I now know, I will still think of that particular Friday as a dark day in the course of human events.

My friend, let’s call him Kris, is not well off in the practical sense.  He and his wife, in fact, have had their share of financial challenges in this economy.  He does, however, own a custom tailored Santa suit and that changes everything.

On a random night during the holidays, he wears that suit and heads out to drive around looking for people.  Not necessarily people down and out, just people.  Maybe someone’s pumping gas, buying groceries or a family is having a quiet dinner together in a restaurant.  It could be anyone, anywhere.  He’ll roll up in his Santa suit to buy all the groceries, ask the restaurant server to let him pay the bill for the family or even walk up and slide his card into the reader at the pump before the person getting out of their car can do it.

I do not know what the exact nature of the interactions are or what is said between this Samaritan and the recipients of his kindness.  It is theirs to know and there is a certain quiet privacy to such kindness and generosity.   That’s the beauty of it.  The purity.  What I do know is they both walk away with something more than they started.  When it comes down to it, isn’t that the stuff we all want a little more of?  I do.

As the days of 2009 ebb away and this year comes to a close, maybe if you’re standing in line, get the pastry for the person behind you or tell the person serving you to take their time, slow down.   Or don’t.   But imagine what it would feel like and amp that up some.   Get a little of that magic for yourself.  Give a smile instead of a scowl; a handshake instead of a cold shoulder.

No matter what you celebrate this time of year, whether it’s Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanza, the Solstice, the Yule or even just a year of health, happiness and success in business, slow down and enjoy the quiet moments; the soft breathing of the kids after lights out, the crispness of the air on a star-filled evening, the soft embrace of someone loved.  It matters, we all matter and the more of us who know that the better things could be.

It is a joy to ponder this kind of humanity.  What is present in most all of us that sometimes gets lost in all the expectations and “rules.”  I think about it and I believe.  The spirit of kindness that is so often associated with this time of year is there.  It just takes work to see it sometimes and a little extra effort to bring it out in ourselves.  I think I’m going to work on that.

The long dark days are coming to a close and the light will soon return to the world as the days begin getting longer.  I hope kindness and good fortune shine well and often upon you.  Really, I do.  Happy/Felis/Merry/Joyeux whatever-you-may-celebrate.

Essays being human, giving, holidays, kindness, pay it forward

About fifteen years ago, in a former life, I worked with Josephine and Josephine had a plan.   She was driven by a single goal which was to work as hard as she could, climb the corporate ladder and make enough money so she and her husband could retire at forty-five and live the rest of their days in relaxed splendor.

Jasmine planned to begin working part time about two years ago.   In her mid forties, she felt it time to spend more time with the kids who had, up to this point, been brought up by nannies.   She was considering going freelance and starting her own consulting business.  Her  time would become her own and she’d made enough money that she and her family were pretty well off.

Hunter has worked extremely hard for the last several years trying to grow his company and build a solid nest egg.   He and his family live in a large house, they drive new, higher-end cars and on the surface all is going according to plan even though he works long hours.  A stranger passing the house in the late evening might see him, a solo figure in the room at the top of the house, working in the only window lit in the house.  But it is worth it because later they will all enjoy the fruits of this labor when it is time to stop.

***

John Steinbeck, in Of Mice and Men, wrote, “The best laid plans of mice and men oft go awry.”  In other words, reality has a way of stepping in and stirring up your nest and often does.

The large telecommunications company Josephine worked for went bankrupt when the CEO, who is now serving 25 years in prison, decided to use the company as his own personal bank account.  There is a very real possibility Josephine lost everything.

Jasmine never did go part time and although her hours were shortened she still worked the same amount of time and is now back at full salary.  Making great money, sure, but never stuck to the plan and her kids are still with the nanny.  Just recently she told me “why not make the money while I can.”  I just congratulated her quietly and a little sad.

Hunter has worked himself into poor health, obesity, seemingly perpetual fatigue and seems not as happy as he really could or should be.

From the guy who worked three jobs at twenty-three in order to retire to the redwood forests of California with his wife when they reached forty-five to the high-powered executive who’d done nothing but work and was now planning his early retirement, no one can predict the future or what the reality of life will toss their way.  Because the twenty-three-year-old couldn’t know that the house in the redwoods would be lost to an earthquake and the executive would never foresee losing his life in the accident that happened while he was engrossed in an early morning conference call on the drive in to work.

***

When someone needs glasses because they can’t see at close range, it’s called hyperopia and living your life only focused on what will be and not what is now is living a hyperopic life.  And that’s no way to live.

It is everywhere around us.  People looking to the future while they close that one last deal; placing that one last bet, that never seems to actually be the last, in order to get that payoff; chasing the money because they can’t seem to let go of the power and wealth to enjoy what they’ve worked so hard for.

But in all that time and while they are spending it focused on later, they forget to put on their glasses for today, missing their kids growing up, the beautiful turn of their young wife’s  jawline, the particular way the sunlight strikes the glass of tea perched on the deck railing, a quiet moment of reflection on a warm summer day and yes, even the successes that can be had on a work day well done.  The clichés of missing something in their life in order to set themselves up for later are legion and, unfortunately, true.

Back when I worked with Josephine, the cube farms were just an numerous as they are now and we all felt the pull to get to work and stay as long as it took.   Working late nights because we felt “it was the right thing to do.”  If you left before anyone else, you’d be thought, and sometimes called, a slacker.  You’d be ridiculed in jest and some would look askance at your departing back with the quiet accusation that you weren’t pulling your weight.  From what I can tell, nothing changed for the most part.   That environment still exists in a lot of places and some would say we’re no better off, nor more secure or happier.  Where does all that get you if you haven’t found the moments of joy and thrill?

A professor of business at Columbia University named Ran Kivetz theorized a paradox in human behavior.  When we put our responsibilities ahead of pleasures, done long enough, we are often left unhappy down the road.

Did you have those times in the past when you went for a beer and a bagel at O’Toole’s instead of studying for that Econ test?  She was cute and you just wanted to be around her.  You quit writing that term paper  a little earlier than you’d planned to go hang out and watch the popular TV show of the day with friends.  (It was so much more fun.) You went out after the softball game with new colleagues instead of getting home early so you could be well rested for work the next day.  Later in life, the lawn got a little longer in favor of heading over to the neighbor’s to watch the game or going out back to play soccer with your son.  Work was good and could be fulfilling, but so was having fun.

Then there are those times at the start of falling in love when everything took a back seat and being irresponsible was the responsibility.  It was so easy to favor the brief moments of pleasure and joy over the responsibilities because time could be made up later.  It would all get done, and perhaps the work would be a little more intense when you got to it, but it would get done.   It always did because here you are, reading this and you’re not living in a tent. You’re still alive and you’ve found a moment to relax.   A moment of your own.  Now.  But I’m guessing for a lot of people, these moments of ease and taking time out for themselves are fewer and farther between.   And that’s a shame.  Because indulging in the simple pleasures of life is, in the end, what makes life so great.

In some faiths the Present is the only real thing (I won’t go in to how that’s not even real because that’s for another time).  It’s the whole notion of living in the “now,” being in the present, yesterday’s gone and tomorrow’s not here so why worry about any of it.

Of course, realistically, you have to think somewhat of the future and responsibilities certainly are greater as we get older.  Hedonism can be just as dangerous as a bullheaded drive to work harder.  But, instead of going back to work after lunch, wouldn’t taking the left into the theater to see the matinee feel pretty good?  What about calling in sick one day so you can go on a hike with your new significant other or because you needed to cut the grass.  Then afterward, sitting back with a cold glass of something and enjoying the sweet smell of that freshly cut lawn, the birdsong and warm sun on your skin made you realize the real reason you called in.  We take these moments for granted but it’s these moments that create our lives.  String a bunch together and weave them throughout those things you really must get done and I bet it makes everything balanced, smoother, nicer to live in.  I called in sick from the Albuquerque airport once  when a buddy and I decided to spend the weekend and part of the next week hanging out in Taos, Santa Fe and Ghost Ranch, New Mexico.  It seemed like it was just kind of the right thing to do.  And being bad sometimes feels pretty good.  We all need to do more of that, don’t you think?

As we get older and the responsibilities of a more important job or children or a new business grow, we lose this ability to throw caution to the wind every so often.   I’m not advocating professional anarchy or anything.  I’m more talking about balance.  It’s like the old saying “take care of the pennies and the dollars take care of themselves.”  If you cast off the little things, the simple pleasures, you risk looking back in ten or twenty years and wishing you’d kept more pennies in hand.   Yes, the “dollars” in life are important and they always will be.  However, without the nuance of a well-lived life – the pennies – all the money or possessions in the world won’t salve the ache of regret over having not flown to Seattle to meet the girl you called Boomer for dinner with her parents in the Space Needle.   It won’t turn back the clock so you could go to the Balerics with your mates where the people are beautiful and the cuisine exquisite.  And you won’t be able to say “because I could” more often than not when asked why you did it.

I read or heard a story recently, I’m not even sure where, about a man who, on his walk to work every day, passed his favorite bakery.  He’d stop occasionally but knew stopping a lot would be trouble in a lot of ways.   On one particular day, he was a little late for work so passed by.  But the smell was enticing and seemed to call to him all the way to his office building.  He was at the door to his building when he just decided to indulge himself, turn around and walk back to the bakery.  He decided to keep the “pennies” and give in to the impulse, putting off the responsibility for just a moment longer.  Because he could, he did.  His life changed that day because his building was Number Two World Trade Center and the date was September 11^th, 2001.

We all have choices and each moment is our chance to make the choices that will help us look back later and think, “yep, I did it all pretty well.”  So, next time someone calls you up and says they have tickets to the game, or you’re sitting around the dinner table and you and your spouse and kids suddenly decide you want to take next week and go to Yosemite, maybe don’t think of what you have to do that week, just go.   Live your life on purpose!  Not only will you have fun now but you’ll be able to tell the tales and smile when you reflect later.  It seems like we’d all be so much the better if we trusted ourselves to balance the responsibilities with a bit of fun now and then.

Make it a life well-lived.

Essays balance, decisions, hyperopic life, joy, life well-lived, making decisions, no regrets, opting for happiness

“It’s ‘The Decade of Discontent’,” I said a few years ago during a conversation about being in your forties.  And it occurred to me this very well could be.   Professionally, people of this vintage are often on the cusp of deciding to chase the money, continue to chase it, stop chasing it or do something completely different in an effort to find that which fulfills them most.  The children are grown, but not all the way so there is still that dependence but independence has crept in so parents aren’t “needed” as much.  The body starts talking back too, asking “what exactly are you doing working me like this and why is coffee not involved?”  And then there’s the big stuff.  Shocking and unexpected news, friends divorcing, cancer and people who have life smoke a curveball they just weren’t expecting or didn’t really deserve.

I had a former friend tell me their marriage was breaking up.  They said, “this has happened before.”  The implication being that their partner had caused the breakup.  Later, it came out that they had actually had the affair.  It revealed a lot about the character of a person I thought I knew.

A friend lost someone to cancer, and another friend underwent surgery for a brain tumor; now living with the possibility that sometime in the future it could come back.

Three other couples we knew split and I winced knowing the pain that would consume them and their children for a time.

I ran up against the stark reality that parents get old and infirm and there’s no stopping that train once it’s begun to pull away from the station.  No conductor to tell or emergency rope to pull as the wheels slip a few times and the forward momentum begins its gradual build to full steam ahead.

Was it my age group?  Was it just me?  Was it this “Decade of Discontent” revealing a side that was darker than anyone knew?  I couldn’t tell, but it seemed so odd that so much was going on.

The pattern seemed obvious but there were no particular reasons.  And there were people focusing on the negative and finding the danger, fault and unhappiness in everything.  Again I asked myself was it just me?  My own outlook?  The political climate?  All the intolerance in the world?  People looking over their shoulders because someone told them they needed to be afraid.   It’s a habit that’s easy to start and once there, like anything, it’s a hard one to break.  Where were those who smile at the simple fact that the sun came up and everything is right with the world?

I read recently that 35 percent of human communication is facial expression.  So a third of what your trying to say comes not from your mouth, but from your whole face (words are only 7 percent, body language the rest).  I wasn’t really surprised because for whatever reason, I have always sought to make people smile or laugh whenever I spend more than just a moment or two with them.  The face always looks much better that way.  It’s not something I actively seek, just a … well … hobby of sorts.   It seemed a decent thing to do.  Collecting happiness.  Watching for the smile, making a subtle joke or comment that elicits the crinkle of the nose, the sparkle of the eyes, the drawing of the corners of the mouth.  It’s a trophy from a brief exchange of words while waiting in line, a small token I can take from a business meeting, a triumph that, for a brief moment, I had a little part in bringing a small amount of joy to someone.

I have known positive people and I have known people about whom others say “boy, they find the negative in everything.”  Everyone has that choice to make  and, thankfully, some have made the choice to be happy people.   Just by their very nature they are happy and what a pleasure it is to run up against them.

***

Diane and I headed up to the Smoky Hill Library the other day for a meeting about high school options for  the boys.   It was a bright, sunny day and as we walked in to the library, we noticed a small coffee bar tucked off a hallway where the meeting rooms were.   The name escapes me, but it was typical of what you might expect; little alcove, books to read, a counter for service and a closet of a back room for supplies.  We had a few minutes so decided to grab something.

That would have been the end of it had the young woman behind the bar been a regular cashier just doing her job.   But she wasn’t.  As soon as she opened her mouth, the inflection and expression she put forth was like the wash from a passing semi.  The kind that rocks you back on your heals and if you’re not ready for it, you immediate think “whoa, laying it on a little thick.”  It made Diane and I smile but I was a little uncomfortable because I didn’t quite know how to take this person.

Ordering our drinks, we made small talk and in that minute or two I suddenly realized she wasn’t laying it on at all.  This was how she lived.   She was simply filled with joy.  It almost seemed as if every moment was a gift to her and she wasn’t apologizing to anybody for appreciating each one.   So much so that the words she used were full of happiness and appreciation.  Words like fantastic and wonderful, greeeat and excellent.  And she meant them.  We talked about nothing of particular importance but it was as if we were the ones she’d been waiting to talk to all day.  Suddenly, we were basking in her joy, letting it cascade over us like a warm late-summer rain; turning our faces into it, almost holding our arms out to catch what we could.  We walked away from that little coffee bar feeling pretty sweet.  It may have been one of the best drinks I’ve ever had … and it wasn’t the coffee.

***

My family and the boys’ grandparents went to Elephant Bar to celebrate father’s day this year.  We’d been there before, liking the service and the menu with its abundance of choices.  When our server walked up we were met with a bright, beautiful smile, pleasant air and friendly voice.  She didn’t sit down in the booth with us and pretend to be our friend.   She didn’t slap her book onto the table and squat down so she could look us all in the eye, elbows splayed out on the table while she took our drink order.  Nope, she just spoke to us directly, looked us in the eye and immediately (I’m not exactly sure how she did it) made us feel that she was happy to be there for us and maybe just happy to be there, period.  The conversation somehow strayed from the business at hand and we found out that she had ridden her bike to work.   She rode to work every day, in fact.   From Denver to Centennial.  We were duly impressed.

The weather was pretty stormy outside that evening so we expressed our concern about her return ride, but she brushed it off.  “I sometimes hop on the lightrail if I need to,” she said, even thought the lightrail was still a few miles up the road and riding in the rain was a real possibility.  She told us she was closing that night so it would also be late when she left.  With the weather, the late hour of her departure, the prospect of possibly having to stand dripping in the back of the train with her bike (those are the rules: you have to stand, in the back, if you have a bike) you’d think she would be put out.  Nah, life was an adventure and she just seemed to say “bring it!”  She was there to help people have a pleasant evening together, riding home in the rain was inconsequential.  We were convinced that anything challenging that came along for her would be met with relaxed determination and aplomb.

She was, I would venture to say, the best server I have ever had in the fifteen or so years I have lived in Colorado.  Not because she was there to fill our water every time we took a sip and not because the timing was especially perfect.  That didn’t matter.  It was because she looked at us with a clear gaze, spoke with a calm voice and projected a true desire to make our evening better.  Diane and I both felt the tip was nowhere near adequate to pay her back for that but we found her manager and made sure he understood there was someone in his midst that brightened the world around her.  That mattered.

***

How great to be around people such as these who are so warm and giving of their kindness and joy.  How great it would be if there were more of them.  You kind of wonder what font of life they’ve found from which to drink.  If I find it, I’m giving it away to anyone I can and I won’t tell the marketers.  They’ll just exploit it, soiling the purity of the simple luck of coming across someone and suddenly having your day become completely different.  And that’s kind of the point isn’t it.   Making the world brighter around you; laughing, sharing a joke with the person across the counter,  changing up the way someone might expect the conversation to go so they slip out of the groove a little.  And the smile always comes.   Another bit of happiness to collect.

Thank you sir, may I have another.

As you step out into the bright sunlight, or even the teeming rain, in days to come, think of the gift of a smile or kind word you’ve been given and use them both willingly and with reckless abandon.   If everyone endeavored to create laughter around them whenever they were, I am convinced their lives would be better for it.  And, who knows, perhaps they would unknowingly help that one person who needed it the most that day.   The neighbor who’d just told her husband she was leaving and knew the pain it caused, the one who’d just found out it wasn’t benign, the one who just spent the weekend discovering their parent didn’t really know who they were any more.  In that, they themselves might find a brief moment of peace, grace and joy without knowing where it came from.

Essays being happy, giving joy, human interaction, interpersonal communications, joy, positive outlook

I wonder what the woman was thinking as she sat on her motorcycle at a stoplight in suburban Chicago a few weekends ago. She might have been thinking of her kids, where she was headed or maybe nothing at all. No one knows but I bet it wasn’t about the car coming up behind her, at speed, as it plowed in and took her life.

The woman who hit her was putting nail polish on.

The forty six passengers who were hurt on Boston’s green line when the trolleys they were riding in collided weren’t expecting to have to be attended to by medical personnel. They were just riding the trolley home on the evening commute. They were thinking, for the most part, what they think about every day on that ride.

The twenty-four year old driver of the trolley that caused the accident was texting.

I saw an accident a few weeks back. It was one of those strange ones. Traffic was typical of rush hour but otherwise it was a bright, normally dry Colorado morning. Yet, there they were, a pickup truck and a very expensive BMW pulled on to the left side of the northbound lanes of I-25 and it appeared the BMW had tried to eat the back bumper of the pickup. Expensive car, expensive bodywork. The truck was pretty much fine.

Was the driver of the BMW on an important conference call paying only partial attention to driving? When I see a $90,000 automobile, I can’t help but ponder the cliché (unfairly, probably) that the owner spends too much time at work. That kind of money had to come from somewhere. Was spending too much time thinking or doing work the case this time? Was he working while driving (or was it driving while working)?

Driving, by its very nature is a participation activity. It seems to me that if someone is driving a car and doing anything else, they might as well be driving drunk. Some informal studies (we’re talking Mythbusters informal) have shown a significant decrease in driving skill when talking on the phone. It seems to me this is merely common sense. I don’t care how smart someone thinks they are or how good of a driver they think they are. Neither a big ego nor a a big brain will protect them if they fail to maintain proper control. It doesn’t matter what kind of job they have or how much money they make, either. Jobs and money don’t drive safely. People do.

I am constantly amazed that there is not more vehicular carnage on the roads with all the distractions that now exist. Vehicles these days have TVs, video game consoles in the back, MP3 player displays and GPSs all serving to distract the occupants including the driver. If you go to an auto show, you will likely see a whole lot more features that aim to get drivers’ attention. Lexus has ads on TV at the moment that tout the new XS, complete with color screen and console mounted trackball. It also has all kinds of “safety” features that are supposed to predict for the driver if danger is imminent. Does it protect a driver or make them more complacent; distancing them from something to which they may be better off being intimately connected? For whatever reason, the priorities of driving a car seem to be getting all changed around. I am pretty certain a driver’s attention is not something from which we want to get market share.

It seems often the case where the act of driving a car is an afterthought to all the other stuff we do or could be doing. I imagine some people hear about these accidents and read about the increasing numbers of proponents of cell phone bans while driving and still think, “oh well, that doesn’t apply to me. ” Don’t bet on it. The law of averages says differently.

We’re humans and our brains, as different as they seem can only process so much stimuli at a time. Driving a ton and a half of highly energized metal does require full time attention and it’s worrisome that, increasingly, some don’t think it does. Because everything may be fine now, but what about down the road when someone slams on their brakes, there’s a patch of ice, a bicyclist swerves to avoid a gap in the road or a young boy runs between cars into the street. Do you want to be the person who wasn’t paying attention and has to say that you didn’t even see him only to realize that, yes, you were searching your bag for your cellphone?

The commercials talk about traction control, headlights that adjust to illuminate the corner into which the car is headed, heads-up displays that show infrared images of a deer or other obstruction up ahead and automatic breaking if the car gets too close to the one in front. There’s even a commercial where time freezes on an imminent collision between a semi and an expensive sedan. Guardian engineers come and adjust the driver and move the semi so the accident that would have occurred never does when time starts again. Guardian engineers don’t exist, of course, and this commercial is just to get you to buy the car. But the message is clear. Buy our car and you’ll be safer, but it doesn’t matter if you buy that car or some other. In the end, the driver is ultimately responsible for the safety of themselves and anyone else with them. And by extension the other people in cars around them. If they are doing something else, safety is compromised. That compromises my safety and now “we” have a problem.

Watch sometime. Watch someone who seems to be deep in conversation when they are driving in front of you. You may notice that they are driving as if they were drunk. Slowing down for no reason or driving slower than the posted limit, weaving in the lane, weaving out of the lane, speeding, hard braking in traffic, even locking up the tires in a particularly close call because they didn’t realize the traffic up ahead was completely stopped. They were too busy figuring out where everyone was going to meet for lunch and listening to how to get there, working on a really big deal or troubleshooting a particularly nasty problem with the distribution center in St. Louis.

I once was on a call while driving back from a client’s in Golden. When I’d gotten to my destination, I reflected briefly on the drive and realized I couldn’t really remember it. It was a little freaky. I don’t “talk and drive” anymore. I’m on the wagon. The phone is just not that important. My thinking is any call I get can wait the 15 or 20 or 50 minutes it takes to get to my destination. If not, I’ll pull over and focus on that. Not both.

Recently, legislation has been making its way through the Colorado House of Representatives that would have required hands free devices while driving and using a cell phone. I’m thinking someone needs to create an even more stringent law that prohibits cell phone use while driving entirely. Just requiring hands free misses the point and is really just a waste of taxpayer’s money (unless it’s a stepping stone for more hard-nosed legislation.) Requiring hands-free devices for talking on a cell while driving is like requiring hands free stick shifts. It’s silly. The concern is not having both hands on the wheel. It’s paying attention and using your brain.

In aviation there are the concepts of situational awareness and cockpit management. Being “ahead of the airplane” at all times ensuring that if something comes up, you can anticipate what’s next and act accordingly. In motorcycle training courses they use SIPDE which stands for Scan, Identify, Predict, Decide and Execute. It’s not a huge leap to think that either of these can also apply to driving. If you can’t scan because you’re looking down at your muffin, or you can’t predict because you are engrossed in a call, suddenly, you’re behind the car and that’s a bad place to be. To be sure, there’s not that little matter of falling out of the sky and you have two additional wheels but drivers are still operating something in which there is a lot of energy. It’s moving at a relatively high speed most of the time and it is always a good idea to be mindful of that.

They say five links in a given chain of events can break before disaster is imminent. Life is a chain of events. If five things go wrong in close time proximity to each other, it might be a good idea to pay attention because chances are getting better that something unpleasant is about to happen. A person is talking on the cell phone and they’ve already used up one link. Balancing a sandwich on their thigh? A second link that could potentially break. Drinking a coffee or soda? Three. Reading a book? Four (yes, I have seen this.) They’ve got one more slot. Do they think they can control what uses that last one? Maybe, maybe not. They’ve had one hand on the wheel the whole time but they still only have half their brain in the car. That remaining “chance” could disappear fast.

Essays car distractions, driving drunk, driving like you mean it, driving on the phone, hands free cell phone, paying attention

I watch as the slippage peeks out here and there. I hear the questions repeated and know the previous asking has been forgotten. I see the slow, gray veil of confusion imperceptibly descending little by little.

I am powerless to stop it; powerless to stem the damage to the mind.

How do I tell them it’s time? What does it take to go to someone and tell them they are not the person they still believe they are? Does anyone have the will to be unshaken by the look of hurt or confusion that follows? Can I muster the fortitude to believe I am doing the right thing even though the sadness is telling me to take it all back and convince myself that it just isn’t that bad?

The person before me is not the same, but I still care for them as I always have. They deserve every bit of respect because of what they have been and the sacrifices they have always made for me. How could I deny them that same sacrifice in return? Our roles have changed and I, at times, am the caregiver, the person with the wisdom. But that wisdom is incomplete, so how will I know when I can tell them they can no longer live on their own? How can I do this when everything they believe and experience tells them everything is normal? How do I overcome the doubt that what I am seeing is not just a passing phase? Especially when there are those moments of clarity when even I feel that everything is still OK. Am I holding on to those moments in order to convince myself that it’s not as bad as I think? Maybe today they are a little tired or have a little more stress with all the activity that’s about. Yes that’s it, it will pass.

But it won’t. There is no cure. It does not go backward.

When is the right time? If I know in my heart there will never be a “right time,” why do I continue to look for one? How do I overcome the fear that this “right time” will be when there is an accident? If that fear can be quelled by telling them “it’s time,” how do we come to a meeting of the minds when one of those minds is slowly being chiseled away? The continuum of memory is necessary to have that discussion with reason but it no longer exists. Is it too late or could I be just in time? What do I pick, dignity or safety? Is it really safer or is it just an illusion and am I using the idea so I can unburden myself of the fear and worry? How do I remain strong? And when they start to look at me and not know who I am, where do I find that strength to keep the pain at bay?

The person before me is the same as they have always been. Just different. I know that for their own sake, I must tell them it’s time to start a new chapter (maybe the final chapter.) But that difference gets in the way. How do I move that veil aside so we can have a discussion with clarity. “Will you move from this big empty house?”, “Why?”, “Wouldn’t you feel safer over there or happier being around more people?”, “I’m fine.” But you’re not. I can see it and I am afraid.

Why have all these questions not been answered even though people have been asking them for decades? Why is it so easy to get angry but so hard to make a decision of caring intent? Why is it so hard to do the right thing for the person who cared for me without reservation for so long? They have had such a long time to practice, I am new to it. What, in fact, is the right thing for this person who has done so much in their lifetime and who has been such a pillar of strength for me? Is this what they mean by “tough love?” Why does it take so much out of me to be that rock of strength for them?

How can I take the freedom from this person who has given me their trust to help them do the right thing because, deep down, there is a part of them that knows things are not as they should be? Am I violating that trust by making a decision without them and then coming to them and telling them what they must do? Am I honoring that trust even if they think I am not? Do I commit an injustice when they insist that all is OK and are certain they will know when “it’s time?”

I don’t know. How can they?

The mystery of these questions pales in comparison to the sadness and conflict the answers bring as they come. Do I know the answers but still avoid them for my own comfort? Is there still time? Maybe, but time is passing so quickly.

We all have to say goodbye sometime. It is the way of it and most of us can accept that. But watching a life that has been lived as a bold continuous line slowly become a dashed, thin one is crushing. Watching the dashes get shorter and the spaces larger is the hardest way to say goodbye I can think of. The anger burns hot at the injustice and thievery this disease has wrought. What is fair about a person – who could carry the world on their shoulders whie running – having their whole existence slowly fade?

I am not the first, I am not alone and I am not the last to walk this path, of course. But at times, it feels like it. I know that, because we all have an incredible capacity for perseverance, I can and will find my strength. That is the only true way I can honor what has already been given me in a lifetime of commitment. My enduring hope, once I have finally walked through these fires of the unknown, is that I still have the voice to say the final goodbye and the fortitude to be both sad for the loss and glad of the release for us both.

www.alz.org

Essays Alzheimer's disease, caring for the elderly, indecision, independence, loss, loss of loved one, loss of memory