Frères Jacques!

I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you.
—Ezekiel 36:26

In Canada where my wife and I grew up, this was the opening line to the French song all children learned. It asks Brother John if he is sleeping as the morning bells are ringing: "Frère Jacques, Frère Jacques, Dormez vous? Dormez vous? Sonnez les matines, Sonnez les matines…"

Your first foray into a different tongue may have been "La Cucaracha" about the cockroach that couldn’t walk: "La cucaracha, la cucaracha, Ya no puede caminar, Porque no tiene, porque le falta, Las dos patitas de atrás."

Whatever your introduction was, I hope you continued learning a "new tongue!" Twenty six percent of American adults report that they could hold a conversation in a second language!
I remember the anguishing hours trying to learn French. Hours endured each year from grade six through second year university. Another language just did not seem to want to fit in my head! Memorizing, reading, listening, all had their benefits for others but for me…my test scores made the upper half of the class possible!

Second year university saw something happen! Studying Jean Paul Sartre, Albert Camus, reading Le Petite Prince, all combined with a special friend from Montreal, the French part of Canada! Soon French was no longer a task, a duty, a struggle, but a relationship, a joy! The special friend has been calling me her "mari"… husband... for 34 years.

Are you struggling to learn a new language, a new skill, a new way of leading, or serving that just seems to be beyond your grasp? It happens for all of us.

Think about the patient experience training we are all striving to make a permanent part of our life ... AIDET(Acknowledge, Introduce, Duration, Explain, Thank). For some it flows so naturally, so well, for others it is a task, a struggle a duty…like French was for me.
Perhaps by seeing the relationship that is possible between a patient and caregiver you might be inspired, beyond struggling with AIDET, to living out each encounter as a caring friend, sister, brother, fellow human being!

Don’t do AIDET. Be AIDET instead!