Lessons in growing old gracefully can help you live more fully, whatever your age or condition. David Newman’s father taught one of those lessons while losing his own cognitive abilities.
In My Father Didn’t Lose Himself to Dementia,” high-school teacher Newman described the diagnosis as initially terrifying for his father, who saw the prospect of loss of self-hood and being unable to remember his life’s story as “unimaginable.”
Then his father adapted in a healing way. Throughout the slow and inexorable decline, he continued to find joy in the company of other, “reveling in what they would choose to share with him. To smile and see the smile returned…meant much more than knowing what a visitor’s smile meant.”
Newman likened it to playing with a child too young to possibly remember the interaction long-term. Those exchanges “matter no less—and maybe more,” because they help shape who the receivers become—and not what they remember.
I read Newman’s essay over and over. Aphorisms and parables that had spoken to me over the years took on deeper meaning. There is “grace in the willing surrender of the needs of selfhood.”
Sadly, some dementias make any conscious appreciation of connection impossible. If not dealing with that degree of cognitive impairment, Newman’s message offers wisdom for patients suffering losses and for those caring for and about those patients: The ability to be with others can matter more than thinking about yourself.
Whatever your condition, losing yourself while with others can help you appreciate them and live more fully in the moment.
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