Grace and proportionality in polycrisis

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Janine de Novais

via adrienne maree brown. This week, we publish my little audio essay reflecting on what has stuck with me from the conversation. This is a new experiment for the pod, so we’d love to hear what you think.

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I did something I hadn’t done for at least six months, maybe a year. I adopted my husband’s recovery method and took an 18-minute nap.

And, of course, all shit broke loose. I woke up and stumbled out into the kitchen and there was my mom, tears in her eyes. She explained that a couple she’d never met before knocked angrily on the door and reported that my dad—who has been taking endless walks up and down our street—had peed in their newly landscaped front lawn and was killing their plants. They were enraged and demanded to know what the hell was going on. They said that they were going to call the police if it happened again.

My mom apologized profusely—of course it would be terrible to find a strange man peeing on your garden—and tried to explain that my dad has advanced dementia. She tried to give them a little sense of the season we’re in—trying to adjust his medication and figure out how to curb his incessant need to walk. He’s lost the capacity to obey typical social norms, like not peeing in someone’s lawn. My mom has a bum knee, so can’t follow him every time he leaves the house, she explained, and her adult children, who are committed caregivers, have jobs and kids to look after. It’s a difficult situation.

My poor mom was exuding exhaustion and shame. I immediately felt so guilty I had finally decided to take a damn nap the moment these people had shown up at the door. I should have shielded her from this experience, absorbed it myself, played the diplomatic daughter. “I’m so sorry you had to go through that, Mom,” I said and gave her a huge hug. My dad slinked around, looking guilty and confused. He had no memory of what they were saying, nor could he follow what the hell they were talking about in the first place, but he could pick up on the ugly medley of emotions and knew he was somehow the cause.

The angry couple had written down their names and address on a piece of paper for my mom. “I’ll write them a card and bring some flowers tomorrow,” I said. “And we can come up with a plan for informing neighbors what is going on.”

I open up the kitchen cupboard where I keep all my cards and stamps and as I’m looking through my stash, I feel my guilt give way to laughter. Like true blue LOL vibes. Hallmark certainly doesn’t make a card for this occasion: Sorry my dad peed on your lawn! I grab a blank one with a neutral royal blue color.

Thankfully, I don’t need Hallmark. My brilliant friend Islam made this for me.

The next day I stop by Trader Joe’s and get a bouquet of beautiful seasonal flowers on my way home from a work meeting, stopping in front of the couples’ house to write out a card. I try to strike the right tone of apology and conviction—we will do our best to make sure this doesn’t happen again.

We have—likely, totally pointlessly—been accompanying my dad on walks and steering him very clear of this particular house for the last 24 hours. Our hope is that it will somehow imprint on his broken brain and he will avoid the newly planted succulents of these frustrated neighbors. We send carefully worded texts to a few neighborhood text chains about our wandering papa, imploring people to let us know if he’s bothering them or in danger by calling me directly, and asking for grace. So much of my life these days is asking for grace.

But here I am at the front of the aggrieved neighbors’ house. I seal the envelope, walk up their front steps, and knock on the door. This is a moment for a grown ass woman approach. Don’t overthink it; just do what needs to be done. I knock and a man who appears to be in his 60s in an apron answers the door, the sound of a television news program blaring from inside the house. I explain who I am and apologize, handing his the flowers and the card.

His face scrunches up and he says, “You know your dad is really sick?”

Um, yes, I’m aware. “Yes, he has advanced dementia,” I say. “As I think my mom tried to explain, we are trying to adjust his medications and figure out how to handle the restlessness.”

“You really need to take better care of him,” he goes on, mansplaining my father’s illness to me. I feel my adrenaline rising. Get away from this man, my body says. “He’s very skinny. And he’s very young to be so sick. How old is he?”

“76 years old,” I answer. "

“So young. It’s terrible. He shouldn’t be out. He has dementia.” The man’s phone rings inside the house and I seize on the opportunity: “I don’t want to take too much of your time. I just wanted to apologize. Take care,” and back away from the door as quickly as I can.

He shuts the door and I hustle back to my car and drive home, thinking the whole time: “I really hope my dad pees on that guy’s lawn again.”

For what it’s worth, and it’s worth a lot, the other neighbors on the text threads respond with such empathy and kindness. They tell us stories of their own relatives, who struggled with dementia and express solidarity. Some say they have seen him walking around and that he has given them nice smiles. A few days later when my dad is marching up and down the street in a torrential downpours (despite our best effort to keep him inside), a neighbor on the corner texts me a heart emoji—no words, just a quiet, loving expression of witness and empathy. It feels the perfect gesture.

In this time of so much crisis—personal, environmental, political—I think we should all strive to be the neighbor who sends the quiet solidarity rather than expresses indignant judgment. Bring the casserole to the emergency meeting at school about immigration status and safety. Email the teacher that leads the rainbow club for LGBTQ+ kids at school and ask her if she needs any support right now, especially if your kid isn’t in that club! Call and advocate that the funding freeze on Medicaid will cause great danger for elders, especially if you’re not an elder, yourself, or caring for one right now (those of us who are, are stretched to the max, so this kind of advocacy is hard.)

This feels like it is both about grace and loving proportionality. I know my dad caused this couple confusion and annoyance, maybe even a little private loss; but I long for neighbors who have a way of putting our losses into some kind of generous human order. This moment calls for this—the ability to put our own risks and losses in perspective next to other Americans in our midst. Yes, there are a few things, for example, that RFK advocates for that I, too, am interested in, but that doesn’t mean I prioritize my kids having less microplastics in their bodies above other kids simply getting to live without fear of being torn away from their families. This is a very simple moral calculus if we actually pay attention to what is at stake for people other than ourselves.

I make sure my mom sees all of the compassionate neighbors’ messages to balance out the angry mansplainer. Grace and proportionality abound, as it turns out, they just happen to be quieter. Sometimes it’s the quiet acts that make us feel tremendously less lonely, less scared, that save our very lives.