My mom used to tell me that my dad could fire someone, and they would ALWAYS leave shaking his hand and thanking him. When I was a kid, a teen, I scoffed at her. I didn’t believe it. As I got older, I learned what nuance was, how complex relationships and interactions could be, and -honestly- watched my dad and how he dealt with folks in general. Then I could sort of understand it. But I never got HOW he did that, until I was pretty far into my career as a social worker and mental health professional.
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I was recently offering supervision consultation to a new therapist. They were asking me how to navigate a situation with a client where they had to deliver some information they anticipated might upset the client. They were particularly concerned with verbiage-understandably, as they are a new therapist. This is new territory.
I told them I couldn’t script it for them, but instead offered this story.
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My father, the same one who could fire someone and they would thank him….. he passed away just over a year ago. He’d had a critical medical incident and was in kidney failure for the last several years of his life. He was dialysis-dependent. And he did everything he could to get UN-dependent. My dad was a take-charge kinda guy, he was a fixer. In addition to being beloved even when he was firing someone, he left no stone unturned, and he had chutzpah. So he decided, in his compromised state, that his motto of “go big or go home” applied to his health as wellas anything else, and pursued a kidney transplant.
He went simultaneously (no stone unturned!) to two different health systems: a VERY high-profile for-profit network, and a big academic teaching center. He traveled to each one (both two hours away, in opposite directions) multiple times, and had seemingly endless amount of tests, consults, appointments and procedures.
It was a lot. It took almost eight months.
It was what he needed-something to work toward, something to conquer, something to FIX.
Here is how each process went:
1. the big for-profit, high-profile health system, had him waiting several months (MONTHS) for the deciding body to meet and discuss his case. My mom began calling to inquire about the timeline, and got a call from someone who told her-abruptly-that my dad had been declined.
Without the deciding body meeting.
The reason they gave was one of his many health conditions, which was known at the outset of the long process-no need to have done all of the tests, the appointments, the waiting. It was like a slap in the face: Your time doesn’t matter. Your life doesn’t matter.
You don’t matter, to us.
2. the non-profit, academic center had him do some similar tests, used some of the results from other tests he got for the for-profit, and had him come in person- a two-hour drive-so the transplant specialist could meet with them.
To tell them, with a detailed explanation, and a big heaping pile of humanity , kindness
and compassion, that my dad was not a good candidate for kidney transplant. That he could end up in worse shape than he already was. That the risks greatly outweighed any potential benefit.
He finished, putting his hand gently on my father’s shoulder, by saying: “We are here to make you better. Not worse. I’m so sorry.”
My mother wrote two lengthy follow-up letters, one to each facility. The one to the for-profit was an “I cannot believe you TREAT people the way you do. This entire process was unprofessional” rip-them-a-new-one letter.
The letter to the non-profit academic facility said, in so many words:
“This has been a rough journey for my husband and me. It continues to be a rough journey. But we would like you to know that how thorough you were, how professional you were, and how CARING you were-well, we couldn’t have asked for a better declination. Thank you for truly wanting to help and keeping our best interests in mind, no matter what you were able to do medically.”
I told these stories to the new therapist, and all I said was:
Be like the academic place.
Not the for-profit high-profile place.
We are always going to have to have hard conversations, and deliver difficult information to people we are serving, or people we care about.
It all comes down to HOW we say things, not the words that we say.
It all comes down to BEING. Not SAYING.
[image: two hands holding a red heart in palms next to each other, and two hands together, face up, just underneath)
it’s about BEING. (not SAYING.)
