The Village People

I’ll dispense with the self criticism about how long it has been since I have written here, and instead confess that the impetus for starting again is the guest post I wrote for my friend Kristi’s new blog that will be accompanied by a link to this one when it is published sometime soon.

The timing couldn’t be worse, really, because I don’t like to be a whiner. But I am sick. And in my still-newish life as a sole parent, few things get me down more than being sick. A pox on the houses of my coworkers who have been coming to the office and spreading their filthy upper respiratory crud.

My eyes are burny and watery and twitchy, I’m hot and cold all at once, my head is pounding and I want my mom to make me some soft-boiled eggs. I want to lay on the couch and watch the televised results of paternity tests. I want another adult living here, because although I boldly declared myself off-mom-duty three hours ago, I eventually took pity on Critter and boiled some frozen ravioli for dinner.

Yet for all of my whining, I’m really not alone. A friend’s offer to go to the drug store or pick up groceries or just visit brought tears to my eyes. When I told Critter she was on her own tonight and she asked me how she’d get dinner, I told her that calling Kristi was probably her best bet. I was kidding, but it’s true – with one call, she could have been eating a far better dinner with far better company. In fact, she could knock on the doors of several neighbors and easily scrounge up dinner on any given day.

I am so grateful for the family of friends we have found here in Tampa. I’ve been using the term “sole parent” because “single parent” sounds more like a marital status than a state of being. I think, though, that I need to come up with something new, something that involves the word “village.”

Lesson 1: Assisted Living

I was greeted in the emergency room by a woman called the Patient Advocate. Minutes later, she was holding my hand when the doctor told me my husband was dead. My recollection of the next several hours is hazy, but one thing she said has come back to me a hundred times.

“People are going to want to help you,” she said. “Let them.”

Here I was, four decades into a stubbornly independent life. I suddenly needed help in a way I never knew was possible.

I called my sister-in-law from the hospital to tell her what happened, and she asked if I wanted her to come. “Yes,” I said without hesitation. “Please come.”

Normally, I would have told her to get some sleep and come the next day. She lives 90 miles away and it was already evening. I would have thought about traffic and darkness and whether she had eaten dinner yet. I would have told her not to worry about me, I would be fine. Instead, I asked her to come.

The next day, I opened the door to find a neighbor with tears streaming down her face. She was holding a plate of chocolate cake. “I don’t know what to say, so I made this. It’s still warm.” She came inside and sat with me for hours and I let her. We ate cake and cried and laughed, and I never told her to go home even though I knew this was messing up her family’s busy schedule.

In the last two months, I have become the ultimate “YES” woman. I have come to think of our home as a kind of assisted living facility, where no offer of help goes unaccepted. The boundless generosity of spirit in my family and friends is truly amazing, and I appreciate every single act of compassion - no matter how small or grand.

“People are going to want to help you,” she said. “Let them.”