PATIENCE

“I pray for patience and I want it right now!”  If there’s one thing that slips through the sieve at the drop of a hat it’s patience.  No matter how well-intentioned and how resolved we are, it just takes one push of the right button and patience is gone, followed immediately by regret and new resolve to be more patient next time.   Next time?  When is next time?  One never really knows — only that it leaps unexpectedly from behind a corner and you find yourself, with patience lost, back at square one.  Patience:  Is there some place where I can order it by the carload?

Over the  years I have observed that the desire for patience is very universal.  Mothers of small children plead for it, parents with teens have long since been stripped of it and grandmothers lament because they didn’t have more of it.  I recall my own mother looking back on rearing me and my two sisters and telling me that she wished she had been more patient.  It was almost apologetic, and as a young mother with small children I gave her a hug because I understood and forgave her knowing I too was guilty of the same shortcomings. 

My mother and I became closer during my middle years and her older years sharing  a parental common land.  We spoke more openly than we had in earlier years of things we could have, should have, done better,  but also made allowances for the surrounding circumstances in our lives that certainly influenced our patience quotient; reactions that we woefully regretted.  I don’t meant we could have filled a book, but between us our times of impatience made up a debatble list.  In the long haul I don’t believe I’m emotionally scarred by any of Mom’s so-called mistakes, and hopefully, my children feel the same way.   Even bringing up children after being evicted from the Garden of Eden our first parents had their trials, and two of their children made up the first recorded entry about how disastrous sibling rivalry can be.  Do you suppose Adam and Eve ever talked about their patience, or lack thereof?

In her old age my mother became a victim of Alzheimer’s and I was her main caregiver.  Every so often I found myself losing patience with her — again — stress and outside circumstances added to the mix.   She became like a little child — a spoiled child — resorting to  high-pitched screams when she didn’t get her own way, which unnerved me no end.   It had been a long day when, abruptly, she began screaming  as I helped her get ready for bed.   Suddenly the small room was filled with the sound of a banshee.   Looking at her she was open-mouthed and startled, but no sound came from her lips.  It was then, and only then, that I realized her screams had triggered my screams which filled the room.  Ashamed and angry with myself for losing patience I couldn’t have felt more remorse if I had slapped her.  I hugged her then, and perhaps in her cluttered mind she has forgiven me.

Several of my friends, male and female, are the caregivers for those they love most, their best friends with whom they have shared a lifetime who are now strangers in their midst; strangers, created by Alzheimer’s or related diseases.  How they mourn their lost patience especially once their dear one has departed  this world. “If only I could have been more patient,” is their guilt-ridden cry of self-deprecation.  It is my cry as well, but I have found myself rationalizing  that it was all right to lose my patience and temper in light of Mr. Hyde’s anger toward me, his snide and arrogant remarks for no reason, his rejection, disregard and lack of appreciation.   But when Mr. Hyde is gone and Ken has returned, and he remembers I am his wife and he loves me my eyes well with tears knowing that, indeed, I do love him.  Somewhere, when time is another factor and we meet again in the eternities, I would like for him to remember all of this and forgive me my lack of patience.