Do You Really Understand?

I listened carefully from the other room where I was enjoying time alone with my one year old grandson, Patrick,who kept up a steady string of very meaningful blurble . Christmas occasions offer a cacophony of words and sounds. From the unrestrained and gleeful shrieks of small children who have discovered the bounty left behind by "Santa", to the animated adult banter accompanying a game of Scattergories. There are warm words for family and friends and heartfelt expressions of appreciation for gifts given out of love. Sometimes there is a tearful outburst from an exasperated child, often accompanied by a yawn. And then there are the inevitable "discussions", that might never take place normally, during which voices are raised and opinions expressed in more dramatic and emphatic terms than might otherwise be the case. Blame it on the annual peaking of expectations, or the prevalence of liquid courage, but this season as the amazing potential to highlight our embarrassing lack of discipline when it comes to the use of words.

Perhaps this is why Christmas day left me thinking about words; specifically, words to avoid in the context of Parkinson's disease.

At the top of the list are the supposedly sympathetic words, "I understand". These words are almost always inaccurate, and often communicate exactly the opposite of what they mean. How often have you heard that phrase and silently reacted, "Oh no you do not!"?  How can someone really understand the physical manifestations of the ever-dogged PD? Even some of us who are experiencing this neurological nightmare have difficulty understanding others who share it . This phrase intended as an expression of attempted empathy is truly a presumption; a facile, throwaway line that betrays our ignorance, and sometimes our arrogance. In fact, it may be unintentionally dismissive of the person's unique experience and feelings. While I fully acknowledge that the speaker's intention in using these 4 syllables is rarely to harm the hearer, these words can easily be hurtful. Is not it more honest to admit, "I cannot possibly fully understand your circumstances... feelings... pain... fears..."?

"I understand" is a statement of fact, like saying, I understand Einstein's theory of relativity".  Applied to another person it is often, at best, an overstatement.  For myself, I certainly need to be more sensitve to my use of such phrases.

Since being diagnosed with Parkinson's almost 4 years ago now, I have become sensitive, even hypersensitive, to one simple fact: I will never fully understand another human being experience of loss or pain. Therefore, to say, "I understand" is to trivialize, or at the very least reduce that person tothe size of my own limited experience. I am not sure that healthy people understand this. Is it so easy to understand?

I know how it feels when someone who I know glibly draws his or her conclusions about my life by making that unsustainable objective statement, "I understand". My choice these days, when I am tempted to use that fateful phrase, is to replace it with, "I would really like to understand more. Is it okay if I ask you some questions to help me with that?"

All of us, even Patrick with his one-year-old gibberish, want to be understood. Rarely do people feel understood by being told that they are.

Parkinson's, Wine and Old Friends

Relationships with old friends are like wines; the good ones usually improve with age, becoming richer, deeper and more intoxicating, while the others of lesser quality lose their flavour. This was proven last night.

It actually started 30 years ago, in September of 1976, when some 179 mostly young students (me being one of them) met for the first time in classes or the "Interaction Area".  Someone lacked creativity, but that is what they called the lounge area in the bunker style building of the University of British Columbia Law School. Three years later, almost all of us were unleashed to "practice" law on an unsuspecting public. Can you imagine the fear of those first clients if the truth had been known? "Hi, my name is Gerald and I will be your lawyer today. I have a law degree but no experience so I will be practicing on you."

Of course, we learned about the law at law school. However, we never learned how to actually be lawyers until we began to "practice". In retrospect, it was like handing a scalpel to medical students, who had never performed an operation or even watched one (except on TV), and suggesting they go find someone to "practice" on. Young lawyers do not get supplied with cadavers for “practice”.

Fast-forward (and I mean fast) 30 years to a gathering of those same people, at least a reasonable sampling of them. The scene at the 30 Year Reunion of the Law School Class of 1979 was fascinating for numerous reasons. The usual differences in appearance were stereotypical. Some had aged well and others, well, they had aged.  Some put on weight and others looked like models.  Some were in Armani suits while others were in jeans.  There was the array of careers from personal life coach to an expert in “meteor law” (true!). There was a mining executive with a UBC librairy named after him and a significant number of judges.  And some of our class did not come for obvious reasons.

I was charged with giving a tribute to our classmate and friend, Hugh. As part of that 'in memoriam' I read my October 1, 2009 blog entry, "Round Multicoloured Bruises", which off-handedly mentioned my Parkinson's disease. I did not want to make a big deal of this disclosure, but I did not want to hide it either. I had tried to prepare myself for what I thought might be the responses. I knew that there would be no collective inhaled gasp, lawyers are far too controlled for that, but I was anticipating a variety of responses. Like uncorking a bottle of wine, I honestly did not know what to expect.

I was struck again by how awkward even old friends seemed to handle the news (only a few in the room knew of my diagnosis). Despite trying to be casual and take a "it's just a card I've been dealt" attitude with a chaser of "lots of people have it worse", few classmates mentioned it. Maybe they did not hear me, as apparently I was reading too quickly in my attempt to keep to my time allotment (something most lawyers find difficult, as was ably demonstrated by others later in the evening). Those that did comment seemed to have difficulty with words (not a common occurrence for members of the legal profession).

It seems to me that dealing with a person who has a disease or disability is difficult, even for my friends. There seems to be helplessness felt that does not sit comfortably with those more at home with corporate mergers, complex court cases or solving problems generally. PD just does not fit. And it cannot be hidden (at least for long) before an explanation needs to be given for the symptoms. So I had concluded that the risk had to be taken.

It may be groundless, and even a touch of paranoia, but I drove home wondering if I had just been labeled by most of my classmates.

Like the bottles of wine we auctioned for a law school scholarship fund, we all seem to want to know names and details so that we can define what, or who, is inside.  But it is time, which ages all things, that will provide proof of character and content.