"You're good."

And why hearing it once made me crazy

Long before I knew my husband’s brain was atrophying with disease, long before I understood that there was a physiological reason for the strange verbal tic he developed (which I first noticed five years ago), I confess that hearing it made me crazy.

“You’re good!” Doug would exclaim at some point in the course of conversation with almost anyone and everyone.

His “You’re good!” always came as an expression of appreciation for something clever someone said or did, or a story they recounted of something they had done. But after hearing Doug say it to me as well as to strangers, acquaintances, friends, and family alike, I remember challenging him.

“Hon—why do you say, ‘You’re good’ to everyone? If everyone is good, then no one is. Your compliment is meaningless. If you want to pay someone a compliment, try to be more specific. Tell them what you appreciate about them. Why are they good? What are they good at? What is it that you think makes them good?”

Our kids also tried, repeatedly, to expand their father’s vocabulary. “Can you think of another word, Dad? What are some other ways of saying ‘good’?”

But “You’re good” was Doug’s default. I heard it so often, it took great restraint not to roll my eyes each time he pronounced those two words.

Photo by Roberta Carvalho, Unsplash.

And yet, it was clear that people often relished the compliment. Again and again, I watched as, in the wake of my husband’s “You’re good,” eyes brightened, backs straightened, cheeks reddened, and smiles broadened.

Doug noticed, too. “People like it,” he said when I suggested he not give such compliments to strangers. “They always smile. It makes them happy.”

But not always; occasionally, Doug’s words would be met with a puzzled expression. And sometimes, even, “I am? Well, thank you.”

I felt mildly embarrassed whenever that happened. “They’re onto him,” I remember thinking. “They’re wondering how he can imply that he knows them well enough to say that they’re ‘good’.”

But I don’t recall anyone ever querying him further. I don’t remember anyone ever saying, “Really? Why do you say so?” Today, that feels like a mercy.

*

Recently, I was humbled when I read something that reminded me that someone else, whom we have both long loved, also demonstrated fondness for the word “good.”

In his little book, Thank You. I’m Sorry. Tell Me More: How to Change the World with 3 Sacred Sayings, Rod Wilson writes that as a child, he remembers hearing the biblical story of Creation and “being struck by God’s obsession with the word good.”

“He created light, and it was good. Land and sea? It was good too. Couldn’t we call the creation of vegetation, plants, and trees beautiful? No. They were good as well. Then the sun and the moon were scrutinized. Good. The creation of animals? That, too, was good. And when humanity arrived and Creation was complete, God looked at it all and said that it was ‘very good.’

“One option to explain this is that God had a limited vocabulary, so he had no other choice but to repeat the word good. But that would be to miss the biblical word’s immensity. Reflecting something desirable and delightful, good speaks to flourishing and expansiveness, wholeness and harmony.”

I’ve stopped trying to get Doug to change his ways.

Five years on from when he first began, he continues to pronounce, “You’re good!” to cashiers at the store, people we meet at church or on the elevator in our condo, waitresses in restaurants, friends old and new, doctors who provide care, family near and far, and yes, also to me.

But I’ve been reminded that in this practice, Doug is clearly in the very best of company.

Today, I tell myself that expressing his belief in the goodness of almost everyone is his way of giving gifts to our world while he can, of interjecting something he hopes will be of value to others, of brightening someone’s day—even if only for that moment. As his vocabulary fails, his “You’re good!” is a tool to tell others that he likes them, that he appreciates their service, wit, or intelligence. It is evidence of the kindness and generosity that still reside in his heart, and of his longing to reach out and connect with his fellow human beings. It is his way of expressing that he appreciates what he sees in others.

And I imagine God, who created Doug and who sees him and regards him with great love even as he lives and dies with dementia, saying, “It’s okay, Doug. You’re good!”

*

“If God is the Creator, and if we live in a creation which God says is good, then at the very least we know that we are created out of love and loved beyond all measure. If God knew us when we were still in the womb (Psalm 139), and if God does have plans for us to prosper, then neurological decline cannot separate us from the love of God and our ongoing vocation as human beings. Lives that are touched by profound forms of dementia have meaning and continuing purpose.” – p. 20, Dementia: Living In The Memories of God, by John Swinton.