Waiting …

Waiting can be stressful. A different way of seeing waiting is understanding it as ‘living in the moment’.
Here is an example of two people living in the moment, recording their thoughts and sharing them over the course of an hour.
Louis Sainsbury overcomes left-hemisphere brain injury affecting his capacity for speech, within a loving communication community, led by Kate, his mother. Louis speaks words and phrases, relying on people who love and care for him, to interpret. He uses few consonants. Deep familiarity with each other enable Louis and Kate to talk and exchange ideas freely.
Louis and Kate, as they waited, were drawing on routines, previous experiences, writing words hand over hand. In a pleasurable time together, they talked in words and phrases about this. Kate helped Louis to press the button on the timer on her phone.
Louis said, ’On the train'!’ . Kate recognised this as Louis naming his experience of waiting at stations. She saw Louis was using it as a metaphor for waiting. Then Louis offered the first few words of a children’s rhyme , ‘down at the station, early in the morning’. Kate joined in … it was a song she used to sing with her own mother.
‘Hi, soup!’ said Louis. ‘Soup’ is the last word of the rhyme. Kate saw Louis was using it to show he was looking forward to the end of waiting.
Kate kept reassuring Louis how well he was doing.
’Annoyed!’ said Louis, naming his feeling of frustration. ‘You are so patient!’ said Kate. ‘You are fantastic.’
Waiting can cause tension or stress, but this period of nearly an hour became a time of close, pleasurable interaction for Louis and Kate. They trusted each other.
When the timer sounded, Kate helped Louis push the button to silence it.
Louis got up from his rocking chair where he’d been looking out of the window and came to sit in his accustomed place for a zoom call.
Kate helped Louis press the online connection.
‘We can’t see them yet!’ said Louis. It was true, the connectivity was poor. Kate and Louis just got to see their colleagues, to say ‘hello’, to hear them say ‘hello’ back. It felt like a triumph to have waited and connected, to have practised waiting and had a reward. Kate and Louis planned to go out on a picnic in the sunshine. That is what they did. They plan to join friends for online meetings in the future.