Patience is Power
Patience was what amazed me most on my job as a medical social worker for kids receiving specialty medical care.
Patience on the part of the child who spoke very VERY slowly due to conditions like cerebral palsy.
…While knowing that the speed of the child’s thoughts were not reflected in the speed of delivery, that her thinking was the same speed as mine…
Or the ones who couldn’t speak with their voice at all, communicating only by facial expression and pointing to pictures or letters of the alphabet on their wheelchair tray.
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And those who didn’t have the ability to use their hands to point AND couldn’t annunciate in intelligible ways, but whose cognition was still sharp as a tack.
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The ones who struggled to get every bit of food off their plate and into their mouth while so much never made it there.
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Those who walked with a wobbly gait, looking like they would definitely fall over with each and every step, even WITH their crutches.
And those who didn’t need crutches but DID fall, repeatedly, only to get up and keep moving towards their destination, every single time.
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Now imagine the patience each parent needs, day in and day out.
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This is what I never cease to marvel at.
- The ability to adapt to disability and make space for people to flourish, to the extent possible.
The ability to slow down and tend to life’s essentials and be okay with that.
This doesn’t mean you stop working towards change, towards improvement.
Or the pain of lost dreams goes away.
Just that you’re accepting reality for what it is in that moment, for that day, for that season, even if it’s for a lifetime.
It’s in this acceptance where people find meaning.
- And through patience they find power from that meaning. A power that others will never know or understand, even when you explain in detail.
Being slower, saying and doing less, this may not be less at all.
Because the patience required to live this way demands a unique power and leads to deep meaning unavailable to others.
—Julie
