I want you to meet my friend Nora.
I hope it’s appropriate for me to call her my friend. You see, I’ve only spent time with her 3 or 4 times.
I saw her most recently on Thursday.
Nora has advanced Alzheimer’s disease. She lives in a care facility especially for people who share her same struggles.
Nora is the mother of a dear friend of mine.
But Nora can’t do very much anymore. Anything that you or I might do to strengthen a relationship with someone else, she can no longer do. She can’t give hugs or show affection. She can’t do kind things to help you out. She can’t give gifts. She can spend time with you, but it will always be because you came to where she is.
About the only thing she can do when she’s with you, is look in your eyes. But she doesn’t do this very much.
She can’t even say words anymore, though she tries. She makes lots of sounds, putting them together with the cadence and rhythm of natural speech, but without any actual words or sense.
On Thursday, her daughter and I sat with her. Her daughter asked me to sing to her, because Nora has always loved music.
I sang Amazing Grace. As soon as I started, her attention was riveted on me. She wanted to sing along. That was absolutely clear. She tried, but even though I was singing slowly, she couldn’t match the pitches quickly enough. And she couldn’t form the words at all.
Once she held out a beautiful note. But that was as close as she got.
Her daughter finds the visits both happy and painful, comforting and frightening. Each time she fears what more deterioration she will find, always afraid her mother won’t know her. But when I looked at Nora’s face and spoke her daughter’s name, Nora immediately turned and gazed at her daughter. Recognition, for sure.
This time.
I never knew Nora when she was whole. I can’t love her for her abilities, for her strengths, what she offers to me or the world. I can see that she raised a tremendously kind and loving daughter, so I can assume she was that same way, but I can’t know for sure. I can’t tell much about who she was.
And all of this leaves me wondering, what does give a person value? Because I sit with her and I sing to her and I hear nonsense sounds from her mouth, see her wring her hands almost compulsively, and I love her.
Trust me, you would love her, too. She is pure humanity sitting in a wheelchair before me. Do I love her because my friend loves her? Sure. That’s part of it.
But she has value because she is human. She breathes. She needs. She lives. That’s the only qualification. She is worth as much love as we can find a way to give her. More. That truth imprints on my mind as I look at her.
She’s not trying to prove herself. She’s not trying to look good. She’s not comparing herself to any other human around her. She can’t do those things, nor does she care to anymore. She only wants, now, the most basic thing any human wants. To be cared for.
I said Nora can’t offer anything anymore, but I suppose that I lied. Because every time I spend time with Nora, I learn something about what it means to be human.
Seeing Nora is seeing pure humanity, and I want to hold onto it. I want to think about Nora anytime I see someone whose abilities aren’t what I expect them to be. Think about Nora when I see someone struggling for words or wringing their hands in nervousness. Think about her anytime I'm having a hard time seeing the good in someone. Anytime I see someone sitting alone, needing someone to reach out.
I hope I will. I want to remember that anyone, their abilities and gifts and even their memories stripped away, still shares my biology and my struggle for connection.
I want to remember. I want us all to remember.
We're all just humans. And that's truly all we have to be.
