On a recent visit to my dad’s memory care facility, I witnessed a moment both jarring and unforgettable.
A young healthcare aide was gently assisting an elderly resident when the woman suddenly began screaming racist slurs—spit-flecked insults hurled with stunning ferocity. I was horrified by the words—and even more struck by the aide’s calm, unruffled demeanor.
Later, heart pounding, I approached her and asked, “How do you cope with such hateful language from someone you’re trying to help?”
She gave me a small, knowing smile, as if reaching for something familiar—her secret weapon kept on a hook by the door.
“I imagine I’m wearing a raincoat,” she said with a shrug. “The words hit—but they bounce off. Like rain.”
The simplicity of her answer stopped me. Such grace. Such quiet wisdom. But my attention kept drifting back to the woman at the center of the storm. Now slumped in her chair, her face had gone pale, blank, exhausted. A few feet away, my dad sat with a look of puzzled concern—not quite aware of what had happened, but able to sense something wasn’t right.
I began to wonder: What if this outburst wasn’t hatred at all—but the only language left to someone stripped of memory and words? What if the venom was really a flare, a cry for help for all she’s lost or can’t express?
The aide’s strength lay not in suppressing emotion or offering explanation, but in choosing not to absorb the rage. She didn’t fight back. She let it fall. Her raincoat metaphor became something I clung to as well—a way of surviving the storm without becoming it.
That moment stayed with me. It made me wonder what’s left when the filters fall away—when memory erodes and, with it, the former essence of the person. Sometimes what’s revealed is beautiful. Sometimes it’s unbearably ugly. Often, it’s just raw truth, looking for a way out.
I keep returning to the image of that gentle aide in her metaphorical yellow slicker, the ugliness bouncing off her and pooling into harmless puddles on the floor. It’s a visual I find myself wanting to borrow—wishing for a protective coat to guard against some of life’s harsher blows.
Weeks later, I thought of her again—not in the face of cruelty, but in another moment of miscommunication, this time with someone just beginning to find his words.
My four-year-old grandson was bubbling with excitement, trying to tell us about something he had discovered. His whole body bounced with joy—but the words came out jumbled. We couldn’t quite understand him. And then, just as suddenly, he let out a high-pitched howl, so full of furious frustration that it cracked something open in me.
We listened, pieced together his fumbled phrases until the meaning clicked: he was trying to explain how running home in baseball was the same—but also different—from running home to his house. My little philosopher was wrestling with a homophone—though, of course, he didn’t have that word.
When we finally understood, his whole face lit up. “Yes!” he cried, bursting with pride and relief. He was finally understood.
And again, I thought of the raincoat—the quiet strength of that image.
Because whether it’s a four-year-old trying to explain a big idea with too few words, or a woman with dementia shouting from a place of fear and loss, both were caught in storms of miscommunication. And in both cases, grace meant not absorbing the fury but pausing long enough to hear what was really being said. The raincoat doesn’t just shield us—it gives us the patience to stay present, the strength to decode the storm without getting wet.
Sometimes, all we can do is wear the raincoat—letting the worst roll off until, eventually, the sun breaks through.
