Easy to love

Referring to patients as "cute" is not politically correct. Some people will talk about how "cute" is demeaning or patronizing. I understand this, I really do. And yet I do have patients who I think are cute. There is the woman who, when I sit down to spend time with her, grabs my hand and kisses it. As she's doing this, she says "I love you, honest to God I do." And I respond, "I love you too." Her affection, her demeanor, her attitude brightens my day. I know she has dementia; that she doesn't remember that I've visited before. I know she tells other people she loves them and I know she makes fun of other people - probably of me too when I go to visit someone else. But I love to visit her. And she thinks I'm cute.

I stop in to see a gentleman and ask, "How are you today?" He responds, "I'll show you," and gets up and does a little dance. Out of breath, he sits back down and gives me a big smile. I visit someone else, begin to tell her who I am, and before I finish my introduction she says, "Oh, I know you. You gave me my rosary." Later she says, "I always feel uplifted when you come to see me."

Perhaps they're not "cute." Maybe they're just easy to love. I'm the one whose day is uplifted, who feels loved, who gets to laugh and dance and sing when I visit them.

As I was visiting one of my sweetest, "cutest" patients today, I thought about what it means to be cute. Maybe, as with babies, it's an adaptive advantage to be cute when you're old. It's not fun to become frail and dependent. If we see someone as "cute," we can push away for a moment our own fears of aging and dying and really be there, be present, for our patient. With babies, the cute outweighs the "ick" factor. With babies we get to watch them change and grow and learn - and we know that "frail" and "helpless" and "dependent" are just for right now. At the other end of life, however, we watch people change and forget and need more and more assistance. It gets harder and harder for the family. While it, too, may be just for right now, when the "right now" is over we've lost someone we loved. Or, with dementia, we lose the one we love over and over again, piece by piece. Is it easier when that person is "sweet" or "cute?" I don't really think so. But if "cute" gets you in the room, if it means you come again and again to visit, and enables you to see the essence, the soul, of the person you are with, maybe it's not so bad.