A Stranger’s Words

Breakfast (Photo credit: annalibera)

As you all know from my story this morning, I went to the doctor for lab results. The day did start off pretty good. Nothing had happened through the night with my brother, so I got much-needed rest. I was sitting here at my computer, when my brother came slowly out from his bedroom. He had a smile on his face, which was a good sign that today was going to be a day without dementia in it. I buy frozen breakfast items, so he has one meal each day where he is in complete charge of fixing and eating. No help from me, except when his tremors won’t allow him to push the buttons on the microwave. I will hear sounds of growling, and know that this is my cue to offer my help. So, he is eating his breakfast, and doing his usual complaining about the news. From the Parkinson’s and dementia, he is very negative. He will speak both sides of a conversation, asking and answering his own questions. He thinks everyone is nuts on the news. He told me this morning that he didn’t know why the weather man insisted on repeating the weather so much, did they think we were stupid?? lol. After breakfast was over and he had brushed his teeth, I went to my room to get ready to go, knowing he was safely sitting on the couch. I had gathered up the trash, and where we live the trash dumpsters are quite a ways from our house, so we place it on the back of the car and take it down there. My brothers likes to place the trash in the dumpster, so I always let him have this responsibility. This morning when we pulled up to the dumpsters, he didn’t move, he sat there still. I made a comment about he was going to have to open the door and take care of the trash, because we were running behind schedule. Tears came immediately. These tears lasted from that moment, all the way to the doctor’s office. I usually don’t take him in with me, but today I did. I didn’t want him to sit alone with no one with him.  While waiting for my turn, I noticed people were watching us, and watching him cry. I shouldn’t let this bother me. I want to go over to them, and ask, haven’t you ever seen a person cry before?, but i didn’t. I sat still waiting my turn. Then my name was called. We went into the room where we waited for the doctor. He walked in and observed my brother’s tears, but said nothing. He went about his business telling me my results. My brother cried all through this. After we left the office, I told him we would go to his favorite place for lunch. He cried on the way there, and was still crying after we were seated and waited on. I kept trying to get him to stop. Using every technique I could think of. Our lunch came, and a stranger sitting beside us, looked at my brother and commented on how good that sandwich looked. That was all it took. A stranger saying a simple comment, nothing spectacular in it, just a common thing to say when you are sitting beside someone. My brother’s tears dried up instantly. A smile came upon his face.We changed gears instantly. We went from oceans of tears, sad looks, eyes down, to no more tears, smiles, and chatter a mile a minute. I wanted to thank this stranger for making such a huge difference in my brother’s day, but didn’t want to rock the boat, so said a prayer of thanks to God, and went on to eating my lunch.