Friday’s Five at RevGalBlogPals asked us to
list four ways you have been helped when you didn't want to ask for it
and one way you had a chance to help that meant a lot to you.
Only Four? I really hate admitting I cannot do everything on
my own, or even my husband and I cannot do everything on our own, and I probably
hate the phone, almost as much, so asking for help is a struggle. But without people
willing to share their lives with ours, even for a short while, we wouldn’t be
the people and family we are today.
I easily can rattle off a half-dozen times when other moms
and dads have pitched in to help my husband and me because we haven’t mastered
the art of being in more than two places at one time, and with a family of
four, often that means being in four places simultaneously.
- three moms who rotated driving my daughters to children’s
choir and Wednesday night fellowship because I was embedded in my teaching
parish at another congregation;
- another mom (whose own child was not in tae kwon do) who took
my daughter to and from her tae kwon do class because I was away at seminary for
a winter intensive;
- another dad who brought my daughter home in a downpour
because her bus lets her off at his family’s driveway, a mile from our house;
- another mom who took my older daughter to her gymnastic competition
and texted me her scores because I was away at winter intensive;
- yet another mom took my oldest daughter home to their house
between school and practice, giving her a break from walking in the heat;
- dear friends with grandchildren of their own drove my
daughters to my internship congregation to hear me preach...
I thank God that we are not alone…we are part of the Body of
Christ, joined together inextricably.
While these recent examples of help received are
those times when people stood in for one or both my husband and me, other times help was
provided in crisis and we are grateful for the people who made those
experiences more bearable.
More than fifteen years ago, at 26, I was diagnosed with
cancer and underwent chemotherapy and radiation treatment. No one knew what to
say. You’re not supposed to be sick that young, and you’re certainly not
supposed to be bald! But people overcame their uneasiness and poured out love
and support on our family, even though we’d lived in the town just two months.
One of the more enduring memories is of the women who drove
me to and from radiation treatments. A similarly strong image remains of the
women who would babysit my daughter so that I could sleep when the chemo hit my
system about 36 hours after treatments. And the third powerful memory of those
months is of the oncology nurse whose college-age daughter babysat my daughter
overnight when she had a cold so that my immune system wasn’t compromised and I
could stay on schedule. Angels among us, or as someone has taught me recently, “love
with skin on it.”
After I was in remission, the nurses invited me to speak on
a survivors’ panel. Then, a few years later, a colleague’s sister was diagnosed
with the same cancer, and I discovered I could answer some of her questions. Almost
ten years after my cancer went into remission, a colleague and peer was
diagnosed with a much more aggressive
cancer, and during his illness, he recorded posts on Live Journal, which
allowed us to hear his experiences in his own voice. I transcribed the audio
files into text, giving me a way to support him from three thousand miles away.
We can never know what experiences we have and share with
others, and how our presence, as well as our help and our prayers, support
them. My prayer is that we will be open enough to people around us to see when
they are hurting and be present for them, even as we are vulnerable enough
ourselves to accept their loved pour out on us.
