The Lesson My Dad Gave Me Twice

By Rachael Martinez

My dad used to say it casually, almost offhand, like it was the simplest truth in the world: “Accept the good.” At times he would offer the caveat, “Sometimes, daughter, you do have to look harder for it — but it’s always there.”

He said it when I was a kid and things didn’t go my way — when I didn’t make the team, when a friendship cracked, when I cried over something that felt unfair and permanent. He’d sit beside me, never rushing the sadness, and then gently offer it: Accept the good. Not as a correction but as an invitation to see the other side of the coin. I didn’t know then that he was teaching me a skill I would one day need to love him through what came next.

The moment that phrase came back to me most clearly was years later, in a neurologist’s office, when my dad was 50 years old and we were learning a new language we never wanted to speak: frontotemporal dementia. FTD. A diagnosis that felt impossibly cruel for someone still so young, so alive, so essential to the center of our family. I remember staring at the doctor, nodding like I understood, while my chest tightened with the certainty that everything was about to change.

Frontotemporal dementia is a rare, progressive and often misunderstood neurological disease that affects the parts of the brain responsible for personality, behavior, and language. Unlike Alzheimer’s, it can strike earlier in life, slowly reshaping who a person is long before their memory is gone. It doesn’t arrive all at once; it creeps in quietly, altering judgment, emotional regulation, and connection — often leaving families grieving changes that are hard to name and even harder to explain.

At the beginning of my caregiving journey and my dad’s long road with FTD, I was consumed by anticipatory grief. I mourned everything ahead of time — the losses we were warned about, the versions of my dad we were told would fade. I lived in the future, bracing for impact, tightly wound and waiting for the other shoe to drop. Every good moment felt fragile, suspicious and I learned, with time, to keep the good at bay. I didn’t want to bask in the light, I was training to brace for the dark. I watched him closely, cataloging what had already changed and what might be next. What was going through my head constantly was: Don’t get fooled. Don’t relax. Don’t forget what’s coming.

I thought that was what love required: prepared, ready and living in anticipation of what was to come.

As the disease progressed, the days took on a strange rhythm. Some were disorienting and painful. Others were unexpectedly… fine. Even sweet. There were mornings when he was calm and present, afternoons when we laughed at something ordinary, moments when he looked at me and I could still see my dad — not who he used to be, but who he still was.

And every time, that old reflex kicked in. This won’t last. I felt guilty enjoying it, caught between the urge to breathe and the constant pressure to be vigilant.

It took me longer than I’d like to admit to realize how much I was withholding from myself. I was so focused on all the turmoil and trying to control what was happening that I missed so many beautiful moments.

One day, during an otherwise unremarkable visit, my dad was sitting by the window, sunlight cutting across his face. He seemed peaceful. Content. He reached for my hand — not out of confusion or fear but simply to hold it. My chest filled with something warm and unfamiliar. Relief. Gratitude. Love without urgency.

And then, like a whisper from another lifetime, I heard him: Accept the good.

It stopped me cold.

I understood then what he had been trying to teach me all along. Accepting the good was never about ignoring pain. It was about letting joy exist without immediately trying to protect yourself from losing it. It was about staying present instead of armored. It was about trusting that good moments matter — even when they are brief.

From that point on, I tried to change how I showed up. I stopped rushing past the good days. I stopped narrating them away. When my dad smiled, I smiled back fully. When we laughed, I didn’t tell myself it was temporary — I let it be real. When a moment felt light, I let it land. And it was honestly a beautiful way to slow down but to also honor my dad.

Accepting the good didn’t make the grief disappear. But it made it bearable.

Caregiving taught me that grief and gratitude are not opposites; they are companions. The dark and the light. The bitter and the sweet. You can ache deeply and still receive what is gentle. You can love someone who is changing and still be nourished by who they are in front of you and how they remain in your bones.

Accepting the good didn’t mean giving up — it meant staying.

The advice I offer now, shaped entirely by my dad and this journey, is this: Don’t run from the light that still finds you. When something good shows up — connection, laughter, peace — pause. Breathe. Let yourself have it. You are not tempting fate. You are honoring the life that is still being lived.

In the end, caregiving didn’t just reverse roles between my dad and me. It completed a circle. The wisdom he gave me as a child became the thing that carried me through loving him at his most vulnerable.

He taught me how to accept the good long before I knew how desperately I would need to. And I am so grateful for the lesson I got to learn twice.