He Showed Me I Was Capable
Posted on November 1, 2021My Nana survived a brain aneurism when I was in elementary school.
She has a history of Alzheimer’s on both sides of her family, as well as Parkinson’s Disease. We were prepared for the possibility of her mental decline. From prior experience, my family knew we needed to be more observant of her actions, such as whenever she forgot her car keys or left the stove on. We believed our time with her would be limited and focused all our attention on her wellbeing.
My Papa started forgetting his keys. He no longer wanted to drive his car. He asked the same question two, three, four times during the same conversation – not because he was hard of hearing, but because he couldn’t remember the answer.
My Papa has dementia, a diagnosis that is a truly cruel joke.
He is an academic at his core. He was accepted to the University of Michigan’s Dental School before he finished his undergraduate degree. He devoured works of history, science, and philosophy. When he wasn’t engulfed in a book, he explored the natural world as an Eagle Scout – guiding people through the wilderness on backpacking trips. Because of him, I developed a deep love of the outdoors. He took me under his wing and taught me how to build a fire, catch and clean a fish, spot constellations, and brought me on my first backpacking trip when I was 11. He is a remarkable photographer. He has loved Nana deeply and taken care of our family every day of his life. Now, he needs to be taken care of. Our family’s system has been irrevocably disrupted.
Society talks about systems analytically. We use the same type of charts and diagrams to make sense of anything from “Inventory of Cars on the Lot,” to “Criminals in Jail.” You can’t account for a life, and the lives consequently impacted by that life, in a graph or a diagram. I realize that isn’t a revolutionary insight, but I think it’s one that we need to be reminded of from time to time.
I was prompted of this when I was talking with my Dad about Nana and Papa – his parents. He was telling me about how Nana is suddenly in a position she has never been in before, namely taking over as Power of Attorney and the legal and financial responsibility that the title carries. She must learn this new system, one that appoints her as the head of household, instead of Papa. If you were to map that out, it appears simple.
You just replace Papa with Nana, and the system should flow in the same way it has for the past 55 years, right?
Wrong. That diagram doesn’t account for her doing this for the first time. She has had to learn in 6 months what Papa spent his life “taking care of,” all while straddling the physical and emotional stress of caring for him as he slowly fades away from the same disease that killed her mom.
Donella Meadows opens the last chapter of her book Thinking in Systems with this insight:
“They [systems] are not controllable. They are understandable only in the most general way. The goal, of foreseeing the future exactly and preparing for it perfectly, is unrealizable […] We can never fully understand our world” (Meadows, 168).
Although I agree with it, it is missing something: humanity.
Systems are not controllable. The goal of foreseeing the future and preparing for it perfectly is unrealizable. We can never fully understand our world, but we must contend with it every day, because we are a part of it.
Grappling with a world that cannot be fully understood is exhausting. I think that’s why so many people turn to religion, true crime, or philosophy. At the end of the day, we want answers and to feel like we have control over, or can prepare for, something – but in that process of sensemaking, our humanity is lost.
People become numbers, and graphs, and charts. They are optimized and re-imagined. 729,000 people died from COVID-19. Does that number carry more weight when you take it from macro to micro? When we think of “Criminals in Jail” how does your reaction to that diagram change when you consider the impact their incarceration will have on their families for generations?
For me, “Dementia Rates in the United States” has taken on a new meaning because my Papa isn’t a number. He is a person who showed me I was capable. He devoted his life to the pursuit of knowledge.
As designers working with systems, it is imperative to remember the humans represented by each of these numbers, graphs, and charts. “We can’t control systems, or figure them out, but we can dance with them,” (Meadows, 170). Dancing implies a reaction; and ultimately, life isn’t about the decisions we make, it is about the reactions we have.
— Rawkrr