Doing For Others

Just the other day, I read a Hindu Proverb that stated, "Help thy brother's boat across, and lo! thine own has reached the shore."

These words caused me some reflection and contemplation and really struck me at a time when I am trying to find my place, my purpose, my fulfillment. I have debated just which volunteer efforts to become involved in, should I drive patients to their treatment sessions through the American Cancer Society, should I become a Hospice volunteer, will I volunteer for a Board of Directors that places literacy in the hands of poverty stricken children, should I sign up for a weekly Meals on Wheels program....what am I supposed to be doing with my time and talents? And because I know the answers will come, I am patient and willing to do what I can in the meantime. However, for me, this profound loss and surreal experience has taught me that there are so many in need, so many would just give anything for a listening ear, to tell a story of their beloved who has gone before them, who would benefit from someone who knows and understands things she never thought she could!

To help another one, is to forget, for just a few moments at least, the all consuming, sometimes debilitating pain of grief. I suppose that is why support and self-help groups are so effective. So far, I have not chosen those services as part of my journey, but that is not to say I will not. I do recall, within the first weeks of Allison's passing, so many others sent me pamphlets and brochures and websites with these type of offerings. They were the kindest of gestures, but they meant nothing to me at the time. Now, they do, and I go back and look at them and perhaps one day that is the direction I will head. Perhaps I will form a charter or an organization or just host a group for mothers in my home. I attempted that at one time, but despite the responses of yes, I will be there, no one came. And I understood that. Sometimes we cannot move, we cannot bear to see someone else's "normal" life, cheerful smile, or so called happy home, because our hearts are breaking. We can't drive to the place we are supposed to be, we cannot get dressed, we cannot walk into a restaurant without scanning the faces, and we cannot fathom laughter. We cannot imagine doing for others because we don't know what to do for ourselves.

But one day, we do know. The spirit intervenes and inspires us to make those cupcakes for a neighbor, to make a meal for a struggling couple or family, to babysit the neighbors so the parents can have a well deserved evening of fun, to create a basket for a raffle at the Relay for Life, to organize a whole team and raise money for a cause, to sponsor events to support a daughter's scholarship fund. We find we CAN take ourselves out of the fog of pain because as we do for others, we ever so slowly begin to heal. The consumption of pain, fear and dread, dissipates just a bit and we begin to breathe and live. Yes, it comes back, rages at time, leaves you so breathless you know you must be suffering from a heart attack, then eases and you can get up, do for yourself, and do for others.

I suppose what I am finding is that the volunteer effort doesn't necessarily have to be a huge undertaking or commitment. It can be mailing a book to a friend or acquaintance, or sending the pink package to the young senior in high school who Allison adored, it can be making Jen's favorite cupcakes and taking them to her work, it can be supporting friends and colleagues as they make decisions about their own situations and lives, it can be the online chats with others who travel this journey with me, the conversations with my siblings about our journey of loss as it has settled in that our mother, father, and beloved Allison have left us earlier than we had ever thought possible. Doing for others is a gift in this brokenness, for I have been blessed with the gift of time and resources to help in the way I am called. What I didn't expect from all of this, was that while helping and assisting others, my healing has been impacted.

I am grateful I can reach out to others and for those who reach out to me. In spite of the loss, I am thankful for the gifts that come in many forms. I am thankful to God for the guides and beacons in my life, in the form of people who inspire me, who without saying or doing anything in particular, I can cling to and know I am going to be okay. I am thankful that perhaps I will someday be that guide for someone else, that hope-inducing model, that one who need not say anything, that one who just knows.