Once a month I meet up with a friend of mine who lives an hour away. We meet in the middle of a park, walk and talk. We’ve hit the trails in rain and snow and mud and heat waves. The reconnection and comfort we get from each other is worth the weather.
Last month, we began our slow trek up an icy path. For a few minutes we did not speak at all, too consumed with picking our steps carefully and waddling in our puffer coats around slick spots.
When we reached the top of the hill and the glorious sunshine that melted the ice to a safer mush, I took a deep breath and voiced the thing I had been putting off for weeks: the story of my son Charlie’s leg break. I told her of the tenuous days when we did not yet know it was broken. I confessed that I felt it was my fault for not knowing how fragile his bones were getting due to a combination of a growth spurt and cerebral palsy. It took the better part of an hour to get it all out and when it was done I felt lighter for having said it, but also heavier with the grief.
She stopped mid-path and hugged me, our puffer coats squishing together like marshmallows. My chest grew tight with held-back tears and the pressure built and built until finally I stepped back and said, “I can’t be hugged right now. It’s too much.” She nodded and blinked back tears of her own. I felt safe saying that to her. She got it. It was too big a thing and when things feel big, I need space.
The rest of the walk was gentler. We took it slowly at our pace, and our conversation. We talked of hopes for springtime and the lifting of layers that it will bring, literally and metaphorically. Spring is a time to start over. We both needed it. We planned a visit to the local winery and laughed at old memories back from Charlie’s babyhood. That is how we met. She was his nurse in the NICU. She has been there from the beginning.
On my drive home, with the heat cranked up to melt the ice crystals from my hair, I thought about how hard it is to know what to say to someone in need and how hard it is to be the person and not know exactly what you need.
I’ve been both the giver and recipient of meal trains. Those are lovely… and also stressful… as they involve a visit and small talk from the food deliverer when all you want to do is sit in your pajamas and eat mac and cheese straight out of the aluminum pan it was delivered in.
I’ve had people ask, “How can I help?” or “What do you need?” but those feel too vague and my instinctual answer is to shout to the sky, “I want things to be different!” But you can’t do that, can you? Or you can, but it won’t necessarily get you anywhere.
By far the best thing anyone has ever said to me when I was in a time of crisis was this:
“What one small thing could I do for you right now?”
It doesn’t sound that different from the other questions, but it is a world apart. For one, it’s specific. One thing. I can find one thing I need. It is also immediate. Right now. It doesn’t give time to build pressure or create expectations. It asks you to go from your gut.
If someone had asked me in the aftermath of Charlie’s leg break what one small thing I needed during his recovery it would be simple – a giant nitro cold brew and a space in a spot of sunshine to drink it. That’s it. I needed silence and a huge hit of caffeine to power me through. I needed to decompress in a place that was not my home, where I could watch people living different lives and bopping around with their headphones in, tripping over curbs, holding hands, and opening laptops to get to work in their skinny jeans and faded flannel shirts. That was what I needed.
If you are an exhausted caregiver ask yourself what it would take to hit the reset button. And if you are a person who loves someone going through a hard time, I beg you to consider offering up this one question: “What one small thing could I do for you right now?”
Jamie Sumner is a special needs mom and author.
Jamie-Sumner.com
Author of the middle-grade novels:
