October 2018
This weekend Daniel and I went to the University of Iowa City Hospital where surgeons removed his prostate and the cancer within. Everything was provided: medical professionals, sterile equipment, pain killers, heat and water, food, and a truly caring staff. As Daniel’s advocate I was glad to provide the rest: love, attention, caresses, water refills, songs, encouragement, a second set of ears, and a ride home.
This was our first foray into this realm of hospital care, the first overnight stay, the first surgery. Surely we had all that we needed, so there was no need to reach out to friends. Our daughters and his brothers were keeping in touch, and anyway isn’t this kind of surgery supposed to be private, with all of its indignities and risks? Why burden anyone else with even imagining the details, when there was nothing they could do to change anything?
And yet, I try to practice noticing and resisting that cult of privacy, that notion that independence is our goal. It creates our fear of being seen in vulnerability, times of sadness, brokenness, loss, darkness. How many times have we learned of a friends’ suffering too late and wished we could have reached out in some small way? So as the surgery began I sent off some texts to friends asking for thoughts and prayers, not because we needed anything (or so I believed), but just out of love for the collective us that wants to help.
Oh, how grateful I am for what came next!
You know about it: those caring replies, those phone calls, those offers for help, and how powerfully these simple gestures spoke to us of the love all around. I knew about it too, for when I was young my mom had told me about the power of such things. She said that the cards she received in the mail after my 5 year old brother died helped her keep living. Her teaching through this story has guided me, and though surely I have missed more opportunities to tend community in this way than I’ve caught, I keep trying to serve that truth.
Upon learning of our presence there, our Iowa City friends offered to come sing for Daniel, to bring healing massage, and to deliver nutritious food (one thing lacking in that hospital). Thank goodness for their gentle insistence, for I was not as able as I would have expected to give a clear ‘yes and thank you’ to their offers. We were doing ok, weren’t we? Why drive all the way across town to sing for 15 minutes? Why come at 10pm to give healing massage to Daniel? Really? We’ve only known you for a year or two, and here you are acting like family…And we live so far away, how would we ever have a chance to repay the kindness…
Yes, friends, these thoughts crossed my mind. I watched them all, surprised, curious, and finally suspicious of myself.
From back home in Decorah Janet offered to organize friends to deliver meals to our home for a few weeks, and I saw it all rise up in me: ‘Oh, I can cook!’ ‘We’ll be fine.’ ‘This isn’t THAT big of a deal. Just a little surgery. It’s not cancer or anything’ (whoops) ‘How can I broach this idea with Daniel? Why even try?’
I watched this familiar storyline unfold between us, watched myself back away from something that sounded so good. I recalled my own past experiences of perplexity and frustration when I’ve been on Janet’s side of the story, offering some gift of community-tending to one who refuses it—‘No, no, I’ll be fine, thanks anyway, it’s not that bad.’ I’ve felt the hurt of that refusal, the lost opportunity to be our best for each other. I’ve wished that this person would think of themselves as part of us, give us a chance to strengthen our muscle of giving and connection, say Yes.
So... I said ‘maybe’ to Janet, told her I’d get back to her the next day. And overnight I found a conditional ‘yes’— only meals for one week, for heaven’s sake, and maybe don’t send the inquiry out to our big list serve! I found this ‘yes’ from within my commitment to serve community: ‘yes’ for the learning, ‘yes’ out of principle. I believed that I was submitting myself for the good of the whole, even though we didn’t really need it…
What a surprise it all is, this learning. Because what came back was far beyond some intellectual ideal.
The first surprise was the pleasure of the release of the tension of ‘no.’ Once I said ‘yes’ I saw myself leaning into the mystery of whatever was next. Rather than close a door, I felt love released to flow freely toward us, felt even a vague awareness of whatever was beginning to unfold because of Yes. Something was brewing. Perhaps I felt the energy of some email Janet was composing, some menu that Courtney was dreaming up…
When we returned to our home there sat on the counter and in the fridge not one but two nourishing soups and other dishes, delivered by 2 beloved neighbors the Brinks and John Snyder, along with sweet notes. Next to those, a container of chocolate-covered walnuts from our neighbor of 38 years Ted who we don't see nearly enough, with a 6-word message scribbled in pencil on the store label. All of it so simple, so perfect, so everything-that-matters. What a homecoming. We were alone in the house and surrounded by love.
And I knew right then, in a way I had not known when I reached beyond my self-conscious ‘no’ and instead gave a ‘yes’ out of principle, how much more I had to learn about community. I remembered, in a way I must have forgotten or perhaps never known, that it’s not about whether you’re capable of cooking or not, of singing a song for your loved one or not, or anything else. It’s truly about the gift of opening to receiving in humility (even when some of us have to trick ourselves into it!)
The food, the songs, the kind words, and the offers of help are the way we humans have of manifesting our caring. They are our prayers made tangible as gifts, and their nourishment is holy. I looked upon those containers of food, prepared or gathered by loving hands and delivered to our door, and I remembered it all, this ancient wisdom that had been waiting to be renewed. My soul, fed.
As we age, as our wounded earth cries out, as our old systems of civilization crumble, we will have many chances to renew and strengthen of the web of community caring. I pray for the grace and wisdom to play any of the parts when my turn arises—the giving, the receiving, the teaching, the learning. I pray for humility, for the softness to learn beyond what I thought I already knew.
Thank you, dear community.
