Let the Moment Be Enough

The other week, I held a reading from my book, and at one point I found myself in conversation with a gentleman whose wife is in memory care.

He opened up to me, sharing so authentically that at one point he started crying with me.

It was such a moving and heartfelt moment between the two of us —

a stranger before the conversation,
a friend after.

---

This week I saw him again.

I was back for another event when he walked over.

We said hello, and almost immediately he began telling me about an evening he had recently spent with his wife.

He had taken her out to dinner, and because the evening was going so well, he kept her out a little later than usual.

They had the most wonderful time.

I could see it on his face as he described it — his love for her, his awe over the magic of the night.

It had been one of the best evenings he’d had with her in a long time.

Then he described the days that followed.

She had been having a harder time in memory care. There had been episodes. She was acting up, being difficult — wasn’t following the rules.

It was bad, he said.

Then he looked at me and asked:

“Is that common?”

I could hear the literal question.

But I could also hear another one beneath it.

Did I cause this?

Was that beautiful evening a mistake?

He never said those things.

Maybe I was wrong.

But guilt has a certain shape, especially in caregiving.

I recognized it.

I told him I wasn’t an expert. I couldn’t tell him whether what happened afterward was related to their night out.

But then I took a breath.

And I celebrated the night he had with his wife.

The beautiful one.

I told him not to let what happened afterward erase what happened that night.

He had a wonderful evening with his wife.

That was real.

That mattered.

These moments become so rare that when they arrive, perhaps our job is not to interrogate them.

Perhaps our job is to receive them.

To let them be enough.

---

I realized afterward that I have been circling this idea for years.

I wrote about it in The Ritual That Holds Us, a chapter in my memoir about the weekly dinners I began having with my parents.

Same restaurant.

Same booth.

Same music.

Two margaritas each, because why not.

For an hour, sometimes less, caregiving receded.

We were simply a family sitting around a table.

I wrote then:

Can I let this moment be enough
without reaching for what’s coming next?

I don’t think I fully understood how important that question was when I wrote it.

Caregiving teaches us to live forward.

We anticipate.

We brace.

We watch for decline.

We wonder what tonight will mean for tomorrow.

Eventually even joy can become something we monitor.

Was that too much?

Did we stay too long?

Will they pay for this tomorrow?

Care matters.

Safety matters.

But sometimes dinner is just dinner.

Sometimes a laugh is just a laugh.

Sometimes, for an hour, a husband gets to sit across from his wife and enjoy her company.

Not manage her.

Not monitor her.

Not think about dementia.

Just love her.

Whatever happened the following day did not make that evening less real.

Decline does not retroactively cancel joy.

A difficult tomorrow does not invalidate a beautiful today.

When I told him this, we looked at one another for a moment.

Then he thanked me.

Something in him had softened.

I don’t know whether I gave him peace.

Maybe I simply gave him permission to stop prosecuting himself for having been happy.

But perhaps that is sometimes what caregivers need from one another.

Not answers.

Not expertise.

Just someone willing to say:

That happened.

It was beautiful.

You were both fully there.

Let the moment be enough.