How is being patient important to Helen throughout this book?

When Helen was young, she remembers her father telling her that 'when you wanted to see something very badly, sometimes you had to stay still, stay in same place, remember how much you wanted to see it, and be patient.' (p8) How is being patient important to Helen throughout this book?

Patience is key in training of Mabel. Helen saw the lack of patience in TH White as one of the reasons for his failures in training Gos. I think she also came to realize that moving out of grief required patience. She tried fixes -- boyfriend, hawk, moving -- but eventually stops running from the realization that her father is dead, remembers him as a patient airplane spotter and finally stills herself so that she can move on with her life.

I agree. Patience is essential in training Mabel, but also in learning how to manage grief.

I admired her patience in training Mabel. She had to be patient in getting the bird to accept her and in weighing and adjusting Mabel's flying weight. Her patience in taking small steps to socialize Mabel and her extraordinary adherence to a schedule of flying the bird in all kinds of weather was admirable. It was important to Helen to lose herself in the training so that her sadness about her father's death wasn't foremost in her mind.

I agree with BarbMJ and joanP, her patience was essential, and admirable, in training the hawk --- and it was a way of connecting with her father, since she felt he had been the one to model this and emphasize it for her. And White, in his impatience and lack of trust in his hawk, reinforced the value of patience for her. But her real breakthrough was in learning to be as patient and trustful with her own grief, and with other people.

Helen has so much patience. She showed incredible patience while training Mabel. I would not have been able to do that. But she is very hard on herself

Great answer, BarbMJ! Not sure I can really build on that one . . .

Helen talks about being a watcher as a child, attempting to be invisible. Her father, as a photographer, was also a watcher in a sense. Helen's watching taught her patience and this is what she needed to train Mabel.

Patience is of the upmost importance to Helen throughout the story. She learned it from her father; she used the ultimate of patience when training Mabel - she realized White didn't have this most crucial characteristic; when she found her father's plane spotting diaries she understood how he was. Without patience, there would have not been a Memoir such as this.