Is it really their fault?

She comes in, led by her bony elbow, two times a week, alternating between her two adult daughters. Her wrinkled skin is sagging off her body, tired, like it’s already done its job long ago,holding in the bones. Her daughter steers her into the booth, and I ask her if she wants a cup of coffee. I know she does, but her Alzheimer’s riddled brain is surprised every time a seemingly strange waitress can guess what she’d like to drink. She reacts like child whenever I serve her anything. Excitement and pursed lips saying, “ooohhh” in delight. I give her a nice, hot black cup of coffee, just how she likes it. A few minutes later on my next pass by her table, she flags me down. Her child like face is now the opposite, frowning. Just like a five year old, she apparently only knows two emotions.

The points at her coffee, and shakes her head a bit and tells me it’s cold. Then, points at the cup, not wanting to touch my stupid mistake. I apologize, and grab her a fresh, hot cup once again. We do this routine at least three times during each visit, and every time she is delighted by the new cup, and disappointed in me a few minutes later when she discovers it’s cooled. She doesn’t drink it while it’s hot, and her plaque riddled brain has lost the concept of how long it has been sitting there, or time in general, for that matter. She can’t believe I would serve cold coffee. It’s like the movie Groundhog’s Day. We repeat the actions, and no one but me is conscious that we do the same act over and over again.

Today her daughter started to explain to me that she had let it sit, as if to acknowledge her lack of memory, and show me that it isn’t really my fault. I’ve understood this situation long before, before her daughter even became aware of my feelings, and the fact that I might take it personally that she accuses me of giving her the coffee cold. I don’t take it personally, as I have quite a few of these Alzhiemer’s customers. I used to feel sorry for them, and their lack of short term memory. But then a bit of envy has replaced that sorrow when I realized, they live exactly in the present moment.

Watching our coffee exchange dance today made me realize a lesson. How often is it that we blame others and the outside world without considering our part in the problem? How conditioned are we in finding a scapegoat, or a person to pin with blame?

She taught me a valuable lesson today. Her forgetful brain is incapable of remembering that she had left the coffee sit and get cold. In her awareness, there is no time. She looks at the cold coffee and thinks “it must have always been this way.” Her extreme example of being incapable of seeing her personal responsibility in the situation made me question myself. How often am I incapable of seeing my role in a problem? How often is it easier to blame someone close to you than it is to take the time to reflect what you have done wrong? She assumed that the restaurant must have served cold coffee, in an instant she turned on me and thought, “how dare they give me a product that is not up to par?” It’s usually easier to blame someone closest to you. Someone weaker, someone that is in the habit of taking the blame. But by not questioning our personal responsibility in the problem, we are doomed to repeat the same mistakes over, and over again. I am grateful to her for showing me this today. Her illness makes her incapable of self examination anymore, of acknowledging that she should drink the coffee faster, or order it later into her meal when she is closer to wanting to drink it.

She is incapable of changing her behavior in the problem, and fixing it so that it will never be a problem in the future. Instead, we do the same routine. I make an extra pot now when I see her coming in. Might as well change my behavior and have some extra coffee made, seeing as she is going to do the same predictable thing. All you have control over is yourself, not her. So, you might as well take that extra moment, before blaming someone around you, to see what percentage your actions partake in the problem.

Or I could just stop analyzing, and get her a fourth cup of coffee.

Tagged as: Responsibility