It's no secret that my beloved puppy girl is 16 years old. She has arthritis in her legs, and that makes standing still interesting. She has cataracts, and a wee bit of dementia. She's lost a lot of weight, but the vet says she's in fine health, except for the above. She sleeps a lot during the day. Yet, she still eats like a younger dog. She takes half a mile walk every day. Sure, it's slow, but she does it. She greets me when I come home at night. She's not in any pain. She also still torments her puppy boy and they play very limited and geriatric puppy games (I find your bone and stand over it so you can't get it. I lie down in the middle of your bed until you stare at me long enough to make me move). I know we're moving toward the "big decision," and we're probably talking weeks rather than months. It's agonizing. She's my puppy girl, my companion, my lovely friend. Being a reading nerd, I am reading a lot about when you know it's time. The best advice I've seen is that you ask a third person whose advice you trust. All that c__p about how you'll know it's time and keeping track of good days versus bad days, is just that. When you are too close to the situation, the way you interpret data is skewed. Your heart will override your head, or you will interpret the data to support the conclusion you want. My third party and I have talked and she knows I don't want puppy girl to suffer. I don't want her to have no good quality of life. I don't want her to lose her dignity. Based on all that, my third party says "not yet," and I concur.
Does it really take much of a leap to connect all of this to the Trenches? Clients tell me all the time that they never saw it coming. They tell me that they can't believe that their spouse did X, because X is so unlike them. Their spouse said the relationship changed, that they changed, but they don't see it. Yet, all of the people they ask me to call tell me a very different story. Usually, it's somewhere between what my client says and what their spouse says. You see, they were too close to see things clearly and their emotions filled in parts of their story when the facts were lacking. Usually when people do that, what they fill in supports the conclusion they want, and not what actually is. The third parties without skin in the game are far more reliable as to reality of the situation.
Is there another third party whose advice clients in the Trenches should trust? Oh yes, their lawyer. Again, the lawyer has no emotional investment in their case. Certainly, we care about our clients, but it's not our lives, it's theirs. We don't interpret data through the eyes of emotion, of hurt feelings, of hopes and dreams unrealized. We don't fill in "facts" that don't exist. We hear our clients, and dig for what lies behind their words. Is it fear of poverty? Of being alone? Of being judged by others? Of losing their identity as a parent or spouse? What is it they need or want? What is their view for the future? Whatever it is, once we learn what those things, we can help them define their goals and advise them of their best course of action. We don't rewrite the history of their marriage - that's for a different professional to help. We help them write the story of their futures accounting for their hopes and needs and fears. Here in the Trenches.
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