Today Gregory asked if he could have oatmeal for breakfast. Happy to oblige. Based on previous experience, I suggested he get everything else ready on his breakfast tray before I make the oatmeal. A few minutes later, I am writing at my computer and he is standing in the door. I stop and ask, "What do you need?"
"I'm not sure what to do."
"What if you prepare your protein, fruit, and tea and then I'll do the oatmeal."
"Protein?"
At that point I realized that I will have to make his breakfast for him today. Just the change in the type of cereal he is going to have caused him to become totally disoriented and forget how to do what he usually does to make his own breakfast every morning.
Awkward for me to have to take over, awkward for him being so confused. I wasn't angry, didn't raise my voice or sigh under my breath. I am getting much better. I just made his breakfast. But the mere fact that I had to do and he couldn't do was difficult for both of us.
Do any of these little, passing interactions, experiences really matter? In the big picture of life, does one confused bowl of oatmeal really matter? As long as he can't but I can, does it really matter?
I am reminded of one of the pieces of a live performance we saw by Lily Tomlin, "The Search for Intelligent Life." Her character is a goth, displaced, disenfranchised young girl named Agnus Angst. The piece ends with the girl, while holding her hand over a candle flame, lamenting "Life is nothing. Pain is nothing. It doesn't matter. (Long pause) It matters, it matters, it matters." CURTAIN
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