Grandma Henke

I’ve been thinking about “patients” and “patience”, both of which describe my man at the present time.    Patience is definitely his virtue and not mine.    Oh, I am sort of patient.   It just doesn’t always show, because I like to whine about things and be a little bit annoying while I am being patient.   I think it actually helps speed up the long process of waiting, which is what being patient is all about.      If it weren’t for the waiting part, patience wouldn’t be a “virtue” at all.

Sometimes, the problem with patience s that people might get the wrong impression and conclude that “it doesn’t really matter very much to you” so they tend to move your problem to the bottom of their to do list.  We all know that “the squeaky wheel gets the grease”.   My virtue is being squeaky.  

I’ve had an “ordeal” the last three weeks trying to get some medicines that were prescribed for me.    They were prescribed, but the pharmacy couldn’t give them to me because they had to be pre-approved.     To cut a three week story short, the problem went from the pharmacy to the insurance company to the doctor’s office, to me, back to the pharmacy … etc. etc. etc. until I almost ran out of patience.    Okay, so I ran clear out of patience.     I needed my prescriptions and I wasn’t getting them but I didn’t know who to be the most impatient with since it was everyone else’s fault and everyone I talked with about it sounded concerned.   Savy?   It was nobody’s fault!   Clearly that is reason enough to draw an “impatient” wild card!    

I have to admire Lynn’s patience while he has been a patient, though.  Like when we got home from the hospital and I ran inside to get the walker for him, ran back out to the car and helped him up to the front door only to realize I’d just locked the keys in the house and there he was standing in front of the door on his two brand knew knees.    He had to stand there until our son, Brett, could bring us the extra set of keys from his house … and he was STILL patient!   Another example?  He eats whatever I fix him, whenever I fix it,  even if I try to slip a little yogurt into his smoothies.    He doesn’t complain if I go to the kitchen to fill his ice gadget and get side tracked and load the dish washer and start dinner instead.  

I think it would be a pretty notable moment if I was pretty much at the mercy of a loved one and they did something like that and I wasn’t a little bit snippy when I asked a second time for the ice pack.   

Okay, here’s the funny part of it all.   People think I’m patient.   I’m sort of like a chameleon when it comes to some of the virtues.   I can appear to be patient, relaxed, and calm when I really don’t feel that way.     I learned it either while I was raising my five children and/or while I was the Executive Director of a non profit agency for that served people with cognitive disabilities for twenty years.      The difference in Lynn and I is that he actually feels patient when he appears patient.

It takes a lot to get Lynn riled.    Those of us who have achieved this in our lifetime aren’t proud of it because when it happens it means we’ve really gone too far on something “we knew better” than to do.     Everyone who has done it remembers exactly why it happened and where they were at the time.    With me, on the other hand, people don’t tend to remember particular instances … well unless you count times like when I threw a 32 ounce diet coke on one of my sons, one splash at a time, by shaking it through the hole for the straw on the lid of a mug.   Everyone remembers that.

But you see, Lynn has a low score on his blood pressure because of his “patience” and I have a high score on mine because of  my lack of it.   His way is by far the better plan but in all honesty he shouldn’t get a lot of credit for it if it is clearly in his genes.    I personally think that when “genes” are in the equation it changes everything.    Heck, even I could be patient if it was in my gene pool!       So there, Lynn!   You who sit  so patiently on your throne of bed pillows and ice packs … you are an imposter because it comes naturally.     It is I, the patient shirker, who should be applauded.