Helping Hands

Holiday Stress November 22 2009


Reflection:

Holiday celebrations create our iconic memories – the moments that stay with us forever. And yet, these same celebrations can cause so much stress. They can be unbearable. I heard tonight from a good friend who is moving several states away. She had just spent two days packing her whole household single handedly into a rental truck, was planning to drive the truck (towing her car) straight through for 14 hours through heavy rains predicted for tomorrow, and had agreed with her fiancé to prepare and serve a Thanksgiving dinner just two days after pulling up to the front door of the new, empty house they’ve just purchased. She also felt sick, and sounded as if she was getting a bad cold.

Wait a minute! Is that even possible? Needless to say, she was feeling desperately stressed by the whole upcoming scenario, wanting everything to go perfectly so that she would disappoint no one. But what about her?

One lesson that women learn in our society – those of us who strive to be “good,” and to make everyone happy – is that attempting the superhuman is normal behavior, and that our needs shouldn’t count. We don’t deserve kindness, sympathy, or the benefits of rest. We spend the night up with a sick child, then go to our outside job all day, then spend the next night tending to the child – until we become ill ourselves. We feel we’re doing the right thing. We spend 20 hours a week driving our older child to games and other activities, and being present for the child, in addition to cooking, cleaning, washing, and working a full-time job, or even two of them. We declare entertainment events, and spend days cooking, cleaning, arranging, preparing, then, too exhausted to enjoy the occasion, we end up getting a bad cold, or worse. I’ve certainly done these things. I wonder now how I managed. I was constantly sick with something. Now I see why.

You, my Bubbele, were the one who taught me to have compassion for myself, to treat myself well – to believe that I deserved kind and loving treatment, the same as anyone else. What a new concept that was for me! Every time you were kind to me, I wept, real tears.

It was a lesson you had learned for yourself from experience and from studying Buddhism. You taught me that I deserved help, as did you, as does everyone. You taught me that I didn’t have to prove anything to be loved and lovable, that love could just be, unconditionally.

You had injured your functional shoulder – torn your rotator cuff -- one Thanksgiving, in attempting, with one hand and by yourself, to remove a hot 25 pound turkey from the oven. You were cooking for a bunch of people, preparing a whole meal by yourself. Your shoulder never recovered; indeed, it continued to deteriorate over several years, adding incrementally and painfully to your existing disability. When your rotator cuff had totally disappeared, you one day also tore your deltoid muscle, irreparably, so that you could no longer raise your one functional hand above your waist. You now had two paralyzed shoulders. That new level of disability destroyed the possibility that you could consider yourself an able person. It increased dramatically your level of dependence on the help of others. It, finally, made life seem for you not worth continuing to live. But in the meantime, it led you to realize that we need to ask for and receive help in life – that we can’t do everything perfectly by ourselves without sustaining serious injury and illness.

I appreciate your passing that lesson on to me. In your loving admonitions, you taught me that admitting my need for help with various things is important to maintaining good health and aging well.

As I’ve continued living alone, without you, I’ve tried to take that lesson to heart. I’ve continued to find assistance with a variety of physical tasks that I know worsen my back and joint pain when I attempt to brave them on my own; I’ve also continued to receive help with the challenge of running a household and maintaining a large separate house on my own as I age, while also working professionally. At some point, I assume I’ll move to a much smaller place, one where the outside tasks and the basic maintenance are fulfilled as part of the package. That will reduce my need for individual assistance.

I found it hard to answer my daughter convincingly the other day, when she asked me “Why do you need any help with anything?” I could have asked my mother that same question when I was in my 30s, my daughter’s age. I understand that an able-bodied young woman can’t conceive of the increased weakness of an aging body. I certainly didn’t. I was just as judgmental in observing my mother’s advancing age as I was with myself all my life – Why can’t we do everything always by ourselves?

So as we start preparing once again for holidays, I will try to treat myself with love and compassion, and acknowledge my need for assistance with many of the tasks through which we will create a festive experience. I don’t need to do everything by myself. It’s OK to admit that I have some weaknesses, that I can only do what I can do. Even if I’m no longer a strong 35 year old, my love, my contributions, my efforts still matter. Pride is not worth injuring myself over.



Community November 22 2009

We are not designed to be alone.

Our human history, etched on walls of prehistoric caves,

Or painted in bright detail by artists such as Breughel,

Shows us working with a clan or village

To sustain ourselves – to feed, to clothe, to nurture.

Our whole life fits well within communities –

From naked infant to wrinkled sage,

Each giving and receiving in their turn.

To be whole and healthy -- to survive,

We need the love, the helping hand, the heartsong

Of each neighbor.

Together we are strong and whole and happy.

Alone, we perish – cold and hungry.

Let us, then, sing our love together

As we prosper –

Hearts and minds and hands united.