Healthy Survivors (1) get good care and (2) live as fully as possible. The second criteria can pose quite a challenge in the face of losses, especially if you feel you are no longer at your best.
In a Dallas Morning News article about living with Alzheimer's Disease, journalist Melissa Repko introduces readers to Lee Sneller, a retired engineer and "math whiz" who no longer knows his telephone number and can't always remember how to use his cell phone.
Repko writes, "Lee is realistic but always upbeat. He sticks to his personal motto, which he'll scribble occasionally at the top of a notepad: 'Be the best you can be.'"
Lee's directive can help Healthy Survivors heal emotionally by encouraging them to make their "best" a moving target, instead of fixing "best" at the zenith of their capabilities in the prime of their life.
Given the truism that the best you can do is the best you can do, Lee's notion of being "the best he can be" liberates him to embrace life -- even if "the best" is more limited than ever before.
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