Do I ever really understand where you are coming from, and you, me? Can we feel the pain in each other’s hearts?
I was re-reading some old journals recently and found an incident that startled me. It was startling because I had paid little attention to it at the time and because I had completely forgotten about it.
Adrian had been an athlete, and our shared activities over the years included windsurfing, sailing, swimming, tennis, biking and hiking. But as Adrian’s physical and mental health declined in later years, we did less and less together.
Walking, especially on trails in the woods, was one of our regular and favorite shared activities. In the early years, I trailed behind him. At some point we walked at the same pace. And then as the years went by, I’d have to slow down to match his pace, or wait periodically for him to catch up.
In the last couple of years, I couldn’t get any exercise by walking with Adrian. It was a tedious and slow process which I had little patience for. I walked with him only to be kind, but I got my exercise by walking alone or with others.
In his decline, Adrian would sometimes ask to come with me when I went for a walk alone or with a friend. “No,” I’d say. “I’ll walk with you another time. I need to get some exercise now. “
I did need the exercise, and I also needed time away from him for my own mental health.
Here’s the incident I had forgotten: One night after supper Adrian told me he needed to talk to me about a problem in our relationship. I didn’t know what to expect, but tried to stay calm and listen.
“I’m basically a jock,” he said, “and I still am, even though I’m a frail little old man now.”
Then he told me that when I leave him out of physical or sports activities, it breaks his heart. He told me about the time when he was six or seven years old and was supposed to play football with a couple of older boys in his apartment building. They were supposed to pick him up on their way down from the sixth floor. He listened to their footsteps as they came down to his floor, but then the footsteps continued. They did not stop and knock on his door to get him.
“My heart was broken then,” he said, “and it’s broken now.”
It was irrational for him to have a broken heart over the fact that we could no longer play tennis or go hiking together, wasn’t it?
I can feel his pain now as I write about it, but when he said it to me back then, I could only peg it as “irrational” or “part of his dementia.”
I was incapable then of feeling the depth of his pain.
