You are how you are
Client name and identifying details have been changed for privacy.
“All of my entire life, I have had millions of friends that were wonderful. But the moment I became paraplegic, I lost every single one of them.”
Nina Martinez and Roberta Payne sat in the hospital room with our new client, Abernathy. When they reached the emergency contact section, Abernathy looked at them with eyes that held both defiance and defeat. There was no one to list.
Walking back to the car, Martinez turned to Payne. “We can’t be another person who lets them down.”
Abernathy was hospitalized because pressure ulcers (bedsores) had become dangerously infected. They’d been sitting in a motorized wheelchair, day after day, alone in their house. Their spouse had died, and friends left. Unable to transfer or turn themselves, they sat in pain while infection spread to their bones.
The hospital staff warned Martinez and Payne: “Abernathy has been through multiple agencies. No one wants to work with them anymore.”
Physical pain had tangled with emotional isolation to create a defensive fortress. When caregivers tried to help transfer them, causing inevitable pain, they would lash out verbally, accusing caregivers of stealing and lying. The verbal abuse got so intense that eventually, we had no caregivers willing to continue.
“In other companies that I’ve worked for, the route that we took with Abernathy would have never happened,” Payne told me. “This would have been the end.”
But Martinez and Payne brought a different question to our team: “How do we stay in a relationship with someone who needs us but can’t stop pushing us away?”
We required sessions with our therapist to create a space where Abernathy and caregivers could communicate directly and kindly. Where pain could be acknowledged. Where fear of abandonment could meet the reality of people choosing to stay.
“I was ready to wash my hands and be like, ‘Okay, we can’t do this anymore,’” Payne reflected. “But being able to bring these difficult things to an entire team and come up with a better solution… it’s probably one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever been a part of.”
The therapy sessions opened something. Abernathy began to believe we actually cared. The verbal abuse decreased. Real connections formed.
Months later, Abernathy again called Payne from the hospital. When Martinez and Payne arrived for an in-person visit, Abernathy was shocked. “What are you guys doing here?”
“We wanted to make sure you’re okay. You’re part of us too.”
All Abernathy needed was a phone charger. Such a small request. But what mattered was that someone came when they called.
Still, the damage from years of isolation was too advanced. When Abernathy was moved from the hospital to hospice, Martinez and Payne loaded a car with Diet Coke, protein bars, and flowers, and drove to Albuquerque.
“I looked at Abernathy’s eyes and it was something I hadn’t seen previously,” Martinez recalled. “Abernathy’s eyes always looked real sad and lonely. But they looked up at us with this light in their eyes.”
They spent that last visit laughing, something Payne had rarely seen. When asked what else they could bring, Abernathy just smiled. Their presence was enough.
“Relationships are hard,” Martinez reflected. “It’s not always going to be pretty and perfect. But we had to get through it together. Abernathy had to agree to talk with our counselor. They had to be part of it. And they showed up.”
The business case never made sense. Sporadic hours, enormous effort, minimal revenue. Not all relationships require this much effort, but we’re learning to lean into authenticity, vulnerability, and connection in all relationships, because how you are in relationship, is how you are in relationship.
This column ran in the Santa Fe New Mexican on August 12, 2025, under Business Different.
