Loving The Unlovable
How can we love people who appear to be unlovable?
There are many in the world who appear to be unlovable. They don’t speak, they bark. They offer criticism instead of praise. They emotionally withdraw instead of risking opening their hearts to us. Please feel free to add to this list.
If you enjoy learning from stories, you’re about to read one of the best ones I’ve ever witnessed. If you know me and remember my sharing this story, here we go again. My mom taught me a lesson many years ago I continue to carry forward.
My Mom had moved into a memory care unit on Mother’s Day weekend some years ago. It felt to me like the weirdest and most loving Mother’s Day gift ever. She was no longer safe in her apartment. She needed to receive full time memory care in a safe place. I knew I’d made the right choice but felt like the worst daughter in the world for taking her away from her longtime home.
She’d agreed to the move until she saw her room. She screamed, she castigated me for doing this to her, she cried.
I couldn’t calm her, no matter what I did or said. Her panic had gone way beyond soothing. The people who ran the place told me to leave. They told me they’d seen this many times and knew what to do. They told me not to call or visit her. They told me she needed time to feel at home in her new surroundings before I should reach out. They told me it might take her a few weeks to a few months, depending upon how quickly she adjusted. They invited me to call them each day to check on her progress.
I left. Her screams followed me all the way out of the locked part of the facility to the front door.
I spent Mother’s Day alone in her apartment. I decided to wait before traveling home in case I could see her. She made a fairly quick adjustment, and I was invited to visit.
Mom was distant but friendly. I tried and failed to make an emotional connection with her. I wanted her to be comfortable. Mom loved being outdoors. The weather was warm. I asked if she’d like to sit on a bench on the shaded porch that overlooked the courtyard. She agreed. She sat as far away from me as she could get as we chatted. I tried and failed again to make an emotional connection with her.
A man I didn’t know approached our bench. Mom was living in the all female wing of the memory care unit. I knew she didn’t know the man. People with memory issues don’t always understand personal boundaries. People with memory issues don’t always remember how to use their mouths to form words.
The man approached Mom until they were nose to nose. He yelled at her, using noises instead of words. He was very loud and very angry. His face was scary to behold. Mom had a history of abuse. I was afraid of her reaction to this sudden verbal attack.
I couldn’t make mind sense of what he was trying to say. I was listening with my ears, not my heart.
Mom was listening with her heart, not her ears. She allowed herself to make an emotional connection with him. She calmly witnessed him until he was done yelling. She looked at him and gently said, “I know exactly how you feel.”
He understood he’d found a safe place to be for a moment in this very different world. They looked at each other with great compassion for a long time before he turned and walked away.
I was never as proud of my mom as I was in that moment. I had been facilitating healing work with clients for a long time. I understood she knew more about healing than most healers I’d met.
Mom didn’t try to fix the man. She didn’t yell back at the man. She didn’t make the man wrong. She didn’t try to defend herself against the man.
Mom understood him because she was him. She simply gave the man a safe space so he could create for himself a sacred moment of healing. By giving the man this gift, she created for herself a sacred moment of healing.
It was one of the most loving experiences I’ve ever had the privilege of witnessing.
When we lovingly see a reflection of ourselves inside the people who cross our paths, the way Mom did with the man, we often can give others the safe space to create their own sacred moments of healing. The man was terrified. The man felt misunderstood. The man wanted someone, anyone, to acknowledge him.
Who hasn’t felt the way the man felt? Can you now see yourself in the man?
Am I saying to deliberately place yourself in harm’s way to help someone? No. I had plans to get Mom out of there the moment anything threatening began to happen. Not every story of two people interacting in memory care has a happy ending. I’ve seen more than a few that ended badly.
I am inviting you to look for yourself in the other person, the person who appears to be unlovable, the person who is terrified, the person who feels misunderstood, the person who only wants to be acknowledged. When you see yourself in the other person, can you respond as Mom responded?
When we can do that, we are doing as Mom did. When we help one person who presents as unlovable find healing, if only for a moment, we help the world find healing.
Thank you, Mom, for helping everyone who reads this. Thank you, Mom, for helping the world find healing.
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