She forgot her own children. But she remembered my dad. He’d kept showing up. That’s what survives.
Audio Chapters
* 00:42 The math that changes everything
* 03:26 What my dad understood
* 05:41 The woman who forgot her children but remembered my dad
* 10:30 Why this really matters
* 10:52 What remains
The Math That Changes Everything
I was in Canadian Tire the other day, looking for oil for my car. The guy helping me—somewhere in his 60s, maybe closer 70—was explaining to me whether a top up was worth it or whether I needed a full oil change. Then, almost casually, he mentioned he does a lot of driving.
“Every weekend I go to Toronto to see my grandbaby,” he said.
That’s it. That one sentence. But it stopped me.
Because this man has figured out what so many of us are still trying to understand: what actually matters. What winning in life really looks like. For him, it’s spending time with his grandchild. So he drives 260km. Every. Single. Week.
This hit differently because I’d been feeling the weight of isolation. As a voiceover artist working from home, I used to go entire days speaking into a microphone without speaking to anyone. The former US Surgeon General says social disconnection is as bad as smoking 15 cigarettes a day. Was I chain-smoking isolation?
Let’s do some math—the kind that makes you uncomfortable.
Say that grandfather has 20 more years. If he went once a year like most people, he’d have 20 visits with that child. Twenty moments. Twenty memories. But because he goes every week? He gets 1,040 visits. Over a thousand more chances to be present. To be remembered. To matter. To give and feel love.
That’s not just more time. That’s a completely different life.
Earlier this year, I listened to The Five Types of Wealth by Sahil Bloom. In the section on social wealth, he shared an idea that’s been haunting me ever since: you might only have a few more visits with the people you love.
Not years. Visits.
Think about your parents. If they’re 60 and live to 85, that’s 25 years, right? But if you only see them once a year, you don’t have 25 years left with them. You have 25 more times. Twenty-five occasions. Twenty-five hugs, twenty-five conversations, twenty-five chances to tell them you love them.
What if you doubled that? Saw them twice a year instead of once? You just went from 25 moments to 50. Live in the same city and see them four times a year? That’s 100 more visits.
The math is simple. But the implications shake you.
What My Dad Understood
Here’s what freelancing has given me, though: the ability to make different choices about proximity.
When my dad, on a work trip, visited a city five hours away—he normally lives in Europe, so this was rare—I didn’t hesitate. I got in the car and drove. But here’s what I didn’t expect: that one decision created ripples of connections.
My cousin also lives in that city. She got to see her uncle, my dad, which hadn’t happened in a long while. Suddenly it wasn’t just me driving to add one visit to my count with my dad. It was my cousin adding a visit to her count as well.
On my way back, I stopped to see friends who lived in cities along the route. One was just 20 minutes from where my dad was staying—a friend I would have felt guilty asking to drive out of their way, but who was suddenly on my way. Another friend was two hours from home, which would normally feel too far for ‘just a visit,’ but when you’re already on the road? It’s just another stop.
And then there was my dad’s friend—someone he’d known decades ago at university but hadn’t seen in person in all that time. They’d stayed loosely in touch through occasional text messages, but mostly they’d lost track of each other in the way life makes people drift. When he heard my dad was in town, he drove out to meet us and took us out for dinner. I got to sit there listening to two men in their 60s reminisce about their university days, filling in gaps in stories, laughing at memories I’d never heard before.
That dinner added a moment to my dad’s count with his old friend. It added a moment to my count with my dad. It introduced me to someone from his past I’d only heard about in passing. One dinner, multiple relationships deepened.
Here’s what I learned from that trip: Ten hours of driving didn’t just create two days with my dad. It created visits with my cousin, two different friends, and my dad’s university buddy. It catalyzed a reunion that might not have happened otherwise. One intentional choice rippled out.
I learned this from my dad, actually.
The Woman Who Remembered My dad and Forgot Her Children
Remember that woman I mentioned at the beginning—the one who forgot her own children but remembered my dad? Let me tell you how that happened.
When he lived in France and I lived in the UK, he’d make the drive to see me—six hours each way. But he never just drove straight through. He’d stop to see his brother near the Folkestone border. Then a family friend—a woman who’d been his mum’s friend and had hosted him during his university days. Then another woman—someone he’d met because her sister, who lives in Zimbabwe, told him about her. She’d been sickly for years, in and out of hospital, and those visits meant a lot to her. Then finally, me.
Half the visits on the way there, half on the way back. To some people, this probably looked inefficient. Why turn a 12-hour round trip into a multi-day odyssey? Why not just drive straight to see your daughter and be done with it?
Well, my dad understood something I’m only now fully grasping: those stops weren’t detours. They were the point. He was showing up for people who needed to be seen. People who might otherwise go weeks without meaningful connection. People he cared about and who cared about him.
That first woman—his mum’s friend who’d hosted him at university—was one of those stops. Every trip while he lived in France.
Then she developed dementia.
My dad had moved countries by then, so the visits became less frequent. But when she turned 90, he flew back for her birthday party.
She didn’t remember many people there that day. She’d forgotten some of her own children. Dementia had erased faces and names and years of shared history. But when she saw my dad walk in, something shifted. She jolted back to herself, just for a moment. She exclaimed his name. She hugged him.
The other guests were stunned. She remembered him and not some of her own family members.
This is what I meant at the beginning. Those “inconvenient” stops my dad made—year after year, visit after visit during those years in France—they weren’t just pleasant memories. They were carved deep enough that even when dementia stripped away almost everything else, she still recognized the man who had consistently shown up.
She passed away some time after that birthday. But my dad still carries the memory of her lighting up when she saw him. He still has those years of tea in her living room, conversations on those stopover visits, the accumulation of moments that mattered enough to outlast memory itself.
That’s what the visits are for. Not just to rack up numbers. But to become the kind of presence in someone’s life that survives even when their mind can’t hold onto much else.
My dad is still alive. He’s in his 60s. I have time—but not unlimited time.
The woman who remembered him? She’s gone now. The woman who’s been in and out of hospital? She’s doing a bit better now, but those visits my dad made when she was isolated and struggling—they mattered.
When I drove five hours to see my dad recently, I wasn’t just adding to my count with him. I was learning to be the person who shows up the way he did. I’m becoming the kind of person making memories other people might remember, memories that endure when others fade.
And maybe that’s the real inheritance—not just the pattern of making the drive, but understanding why the drive matters. It’s not about convenience or efficiency. It’s about being present for people when presence is what they need most.
For me, that has been the real power of remote (asynchronous) work when used intentionally—not just the ability to work from anywhere—but the ability to be the person who makes connection possible. For myself, yes, but also for other people. I could rearrange my week. I could batch my recording sessions before I left. I could handle admin tasks like emails from coffee shops or hotel lobbies. I could say yes to the drive because I wasn’t asking permission from a boss or burning limited vacation days.
It’s not a question of ‘Can I afford the time?’ It’s ‘Can I afford not to?’
I have time and location flexibility at the moment and that might change with more responsibilities, but while I can, I want to maximise the opportunities I have now.
Why This Really Matters
The former U.S. Surgeon General, Vivek Murthy, once said that social disconnection has the same mortality impact as smoking 15 cigarettes a day—worse than obesity, worse than physical inactivity. Loneliness literally shortens your life.
That grandfather driving to Toronto every weekend? He’s probably adding years to his life without even knowing it. I’m doing the same, even if it doesn’t look like it.
What Remains
I don’t have children yet. But when I do, I want them to grow up surrounded by a community of trusted adults. I want them to feel part of something bigger. I want them to feel loved—not just by me, but by a whole network of people who show up.
That starts now. With choices I’m making today.
So here’s what I’m thinking about: If we might only have a limited number of visits left with the people we love, what can we do to maximize them?
Sahil Bloom’s book talks about five types of wealth—not just financial wealth, but social wealth (relationships), time wealth (control over how you spend your days), mental wealth (purpose and growth), and physical wealth (health). Most people only chase the financial kind. But that grandfather driving to Toronto every weekend? He’s got all five.
Not just in quantity, but in depth. Not just showing up, but being fully present.
Because the alternative—the isolation, the loneliness, the regret of moments not taken—that costs us more than we realize.
That grandfather knew. My dad knew. And now, so do I.
Who do you want to remember you when memory itself starts to fade? Are you that person who shows up, not just when it’s convenient, but consistently enough that it carves deep?
Those visits aren’t just nice. They’re what remains.
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