During the many years I cared for my husband, Stan, after his spinal cord stroke, I sometimes sensed a disconnection growing between us. I couldn’t have explained it then. There was simply so much that needed attention. Appointments to make, medications to manage, symptoms to watch, decisions to make. The days became organized around what needed to be done.
Of course, we still loved one another. That never changed. But over time, we slowly drifted into our respective roles. I became the caregiver. Stan became the one who needed care. Looking back now, I wonder how often those roles quietly took the place of simply being husband and wife.
Stan had lived a full and meaningful life before his stroke. He had stories, friendships, adventures, disappointments and memories that had shaped who he was. I remember him telling me how much he relied on those memories during his many years of disability. They sustained him.
I so wish I had been more curious. I wish I had asked more about what had most mattered to him. I wish I had known how to help him harvest the memories of his life—not simply to preserve them, but because I wonder now if they might have helped us stay connected in a different way.
Somewhere along the way, I also became defined by my role. I was the one who organized, anticipated, managed and held things together. The caregiving was real. It mattered. But it wasn’t all of who I was, just as Stan’s disability wasn’t all of who he was.
That is the space I have been thinking about lately. A space where two people who love one another can slowly lose sight of the larger lives each has lived because so much attention is given to what must happen today.
What if curiosity could help us find another way to connect with those we care for besides the obvious pills and appointments?
I have been exploring something I call Keepsake Stories. At first, I thought they were simply about preserving memories. Now I’m beginning to think they may offer a simple way to nurture emotional intimacy.
Perhaps they are a gentle invitation for both the caregiver and the person receiving care to experience a little more emotional intimacy—to feel seen, heard and understood, not for what they need or what they do, but for the lives they have lived.
Even with people we have known for years, there are often stories we have never heard simply because we never thought to ask. I wonder if curiosity itself might be one of the quietest and gentlest forms of care.
If this idea speaks to you, I hope you’ll join us for our next Breathing Spaces Journaling Circle on Saturday, July 18th. Together we’ll write one simple Keepsake Story—not to create a perfect piece of writing, but to experience what can happen when we become curious about our own lives and then share one of our stories with someone else.