Weekend journaling prompt

Giving and receiving care

I host regular ‘silent sits’ as part of my programme of online retreats - an hour of companionable, communal silence for those who would relish some extra contemplative space. These are open to all full members. Our next silent sit is on Tuesday 1st July, 8pm - 9pm UK. To find the link to add this and future silent sits to your diary, click here.

---

Slowly, slowly, things are improving. H has taken over his own self-care, and can mostly make his own cups of tea, too. Some days, he can manage a little walk. It’s only a matter of a block or two, and he needs to sleep afterwards, but it’s progress.

It struck me this week that in some ways, he’s already better than he was before the operation. He’s still in a lot of pain, and needs a lot of different drugs to manage that; he’s still suffering from significant fatigue and gets dizzy with too much effort. But he’s lighter somehow, freer in his movements, present in the room. A certain shadow has left him. He is no longer deteriorating, and instead is getting better in tiny, uncertain increments. The household is exhaling its relief.

A tide is receding, and I am grateful. It leaves behind no small amount of chaos. Currently missing: Bert’s glasses and bank card; my sunglasses; a belt and an earpods case. I’m fairly certain that all these things are somewhere under the rubble of half a year of scrambling to stay afloat. An unusual quantity of chairs have washed up in the living room, brought in to accommodate guests and to allow H to perch at various heights, and Bert is convinced that everything will be found when they are returned to their rightful place.

I am avoiding this, though, partly because I’m sick of chores, and partly because I’ve broken my little toe. It’s a stress-fracture, a reanimation of a previous break that crept up on me over the last couple of weeks. First, it grumbled, and then it growled, and then it began to scream. I got into bed one night and realised my toe had popped out sideways, just as it had on the first day I broke it. Damn, I thought. I don’t have time for this.

I mentioned the toe on H’s recovery group chat, and some bright spark pointed out that it was my body telling me to rest. Well, duh, I thought, somewhat uncharitably. Rest is not possible at the moment. A broken toe is not possible. I had to strap it together and carry on.

I have no right to complain. My caregiving responsibilities are temporary, and my work - thankfully - is flexible enough for me to make room for all these extra demands. UK healthcare is free, whatever happens. Yet it has still often felt impossible, an enormous physical stress, a jigsaw with too many pieces. Through all of it, my ability to undertake this work - to cope - has been assumed by a system pulled too tight to ask questions. Something has to give, or otherwise, things break.

I was moved last week to listen to Jason Reynolds on NPR’s Wild Card podcast, speaking about caring for his elderly mother. At the age of 79, she’s facing multiple health challenges, and he spoke of the intimacy of washing and dressing her. ‘It is burdensome sometimes,’ he said, but then added: ‘It also feels like prayer. It feels like I'm praying at the only creator that I've ever actually physically known.’

“My mother. I'm bowing at the feet. I'm washing the feet of the only God I've ever physically touched. And does it feel like praying? It feels like praying and everything else. This is the hallelujah of all hallelujahs. And I really, really mean that. It doesn't mean it's not difficult. It's painfully difficult. But I'd be lying to you if I didn't tell you that difficulty is only a piece of this experience, right? I went through this with my dad. As my dad was dying, we went through a similar experience, and I felt the same way. And to be honest with you, as a person who's not very religious… Like, this is God if I've ever known God.”

You can listen to the whole interview here.

We want to care like we want to rest. We want to transcend our bodily separation and honour the flesh that made us, that sustained us, that loved us when we couldn’t love ourselves. And yet we are forced to weigh it as labour - as a burden - because there is no ease in this system, and we are only human. We give care in isolation, through exhaustion, setting aside our own needs and desires. The fault does not lie in our caring. The fault lies in a society that wants to forget it is necessary, that it is normal.

This week’s journaling prompt is about giving and receiving care.