How Do I Choose to be Remembered?

Count to 10 . . . . . . . . .

Good advice when you're losing you patience...for some people.  I guess I'm weird.  Counting to 10 just really gets me aggravated.  And I never could figure out why.

Until I took a part-time job during college...at a daycare.

Turns out that while I was counting to 10, the children were continuing their mini-meltdowns unabated.  Sweet children, really, just, you know, having some issues now and then.  And, I, being of the adult persuasion at that time (college-age counts right?), assumed that I should act more mature, and like, well, I had it all together.  (Our secret...I did not have it together.  But let a room full of 2-years old know that and you're dead meat!) 

So, when my patience was tried, I started counting to 10. 

Did. Not. Work.

When I got to ten I still had to figure out a way to deal with the situation that was trying my patience when I started counting.

Maybe I didn't do it right.  Like I probably should have been taking deep, cleansing breaths or something.  Or perhaps coming up with a workable plan while I was counting... regardless, I was not a good counter.  And the children seemed to relish the fact.

One day, I watched the owner of the daycare get down at eye-level and calmly talk a hysterical 3-year old off the ledge.  Ok, it wasn't that dramatic.  She was just on top of the itty-bitty toy box, but... it could have ended badly.

Anyway, while I was counting to 10 and all, Connie looked that little diva in the eye and in a heartbeat had her playing dress-up with the other little girls across the room, resolving the toy box hostage situation with ease.

A-Mazing!  I had to know more...

Connie said it's not that difficult.  You have to choose how you want to be remembered?

Huh?!

She explained.  I could have yelled at her and sent her to time-out.  She would have remembered me as a tyrant. 

Or...

I could have sympathesized with her plight and found something else more intriguing for her to do.  She will remember me with fondness not bitterness.  And when she has calmed down, then I can talk with her about her behavior...

Ah... I'm liking this plan.  (Child psychologists might call this redirection, I call it brilliant.)

I began putting her method into practice and found it worked every time.  Not just the redirection, although that was a major part of it.  But asking the question How do I choose to be remembered in this situation?

So much better than counting to 10! (For me anyway!)

Whenever I found myself in a circumstance that was trying my patience.  I stopped and reordered my thoughts.  Put the focus on the other person in the equation and asked How do I choose to be remembered by this person right now, in this situation?

The situation might involve a distracted doctor... or a harried receptionist... or an overworked lab technician... or a distraught loved one.

As a Caregiver we find ourselves in so many situations like these.  We have the choice in how we respond. 

There were days that mom just could not eat.  As the pancreatic cancer progressed, we tried everything.  Soups, smoothies, favorite dishes, new dishes... and there were times we all found ourselves frustrated and impatient with the situation... Mom the most.  I know she agonized over causing us distress.  And that just pained us all the more.  Such a vicious dilemma the cancer caused.  The last thing mom needed was for us to lose our patience...And more than anything our deepest desire was to communicate our love for her, irregardless of the situation.

We chose over and over again to respond in love.  That is how we all wanted her to remember us. 

Tom Barber shares a similar experience as he faced losing his mother:

"I recall my father asking me how I wanted my mother to remember me just before I stepped into her ICU room to say goodbye. It was gently instructive and made me gather my courage and put a loving and peaceful look on my face as I approached my dear mother for the last time.

It has given me peace many times that she saw me filled with love for her and positive in my countenance to the end.

 

As my journey has taught me, you get to pick the memory and vision for your loved one. What you project is what your loved one or patient will wear that day or week or month. So, go into your loved one's ICU - whatever or wherever it may be -- prepared and strong.

No matter how bad circumstances might be during treatment, there is always a way to express love, hope, sympathy, admiration for courage, thankfulness for each moment and the possibility of life, if not in this world, then life everlasting."

So well said... We get to pick the memory and vision for our loved one.  What we project is what our loved one will wear that day or week or month...

There is a humble sweetness in this.  For we have the power to offer Grace always.  By our actions, by our words, by our expression, by our very presence...

Let us Always Choose to be Remembered with Love...