Patience

My dad was an exceedingly patient man. He wasn't a, "Let's go, c'mon, hurry hurry hurry!" kind of father. He was not the kind of person to yell at a waiter or store clerk, giving them the benefit of the doubt most of the time. Faced on occasion with transfusions lasting eight hours, he read the paper, met his neighbors in the suite, listened to his i-Pod... exercised his patience.

I guess he built up a bank of patience over his lifetime that was paid back to him in his last days. Unfortunately I am not as placid and patient -as a father or as a man- as he was, but during the last week of my dad's life, I received a crash course in patience and in grace from a series of nurses, most of whom made me feel like he was their lone patient. It was something that even in my grief I recognized as extraordinary. I also met a couple of hospice volunteers I can never forget. One in particular had lost her husband too young in the same hospital only a year earlier, and she came to the hospice floor a few days a week just to comfort those of us who were now watching our loved ones fade away. She brought me water and coffee, offered to chat, and was generally very kind. I asked how she was able to come back again and again, and she said it helped her turn her husband's death into something positive.

A lot of people who lose loved ones run races, raise money, become involved in the cause of fighting the disease that took away their family member. This is extremely admirable, but I'm working on something else, too. The first, best, positive thing I can draw from my father's death is to become more patient, especially with my kids. Kids spill things, they cause you to be late (and don't share your urgency about it), they sometimes have tantrums. Sometimes I get frustrated and have a tantrum of my own, and sometimes, when I am my better self, I think of the way those nurses and volunteers treated my dad and my family, and I reset. Kids deserve patient adults.

Patience with the sick, with children, with any vulnerable person, might be the most admirable virtue of all.