Un-managing Expectations

“people often talk about being scared of change
But for me I’m more afraid of things staying the same
Cause the game is never won by standing in any one place for too long”
Nick Cave

I like it when ideas start to emerge through a number of different channels in life – usually that means I should be paying attention to something.

Perhaps that something right now is about how to invest in the future while knowing what we know about the present and the past. Some people have referred to this as “managing our expectations,” but usually this is when the news is really bad and we should not hope for much. A couple of recent events are giving me pause. One has been brewing inside me since Friday.

A man who was dear to me in significant ways died unexpectedly last week. He was a man who had endured many terrible things – abandonment, institutionalization, and betrayal by people he trusted. For the past two decades, he had lived a very quiet life in a small community residence with two other men. I had not seen him for a good number of years, but I could imagine his life, deep in the “human service client role”, and any number of other stereotypical roles that people with disabilities tend to fill.

I was prepared for yet another funeral with messages from a stranger who did not know him about his child-like innocence, about how very comical he was, and about how the staff who worked with him were very special…. The oft-stated and inferred message that he is better off now, that his disability is “fixed”, and his imperfections made perfect…..I braced myself.

It is good to be surprised after cultivating 30 years of “managed expectations.” The service started with a powerful list of the valued roles that Ken filled in his life and community. One of those roles was “beloved neighbor”. The small voice of cynicism and doubt that I carry (well honed after 30 years) whistered, “Yeah, right. I know how connected people in these community homes are with their neighbors, who have rejected and ostracized so many people like Ken.” That voice is one I don’t like to admit I have, but I do.

The Pastor said some beautiful and moving things about Ken, and brought him into the room with us in some very real way. He then gave us time to share our thoughts about Ken with each other. The first person who spoke was Ken’s neighbor. I felt a sense of wonder that is rare but welcome to me. She spoke about getting to know Ken, about how she came to see his unique self and identity over time, and about the important gifts he brought into her life because she had the good fortune to be his neighbor. I felt a stir of surprise, delight, and hope, a little like Emily Dickinson’s “Hope is the thing with feathers”. The chipping away of a bit of my “managed expectations” was almost a physical sensation. Yet another lesson Ken managed to teach me, and this one from afar.