all in

When Frances and Gabriel were much younger, Beatrice was but a twinkle, and Mike was a new faculty member working all the time, I felt weighed down with the responsibility of having to manage kids and a house and a life. It was lonely. Mike was often away, and I was often at home. If there was a domestic problem, chances were I would have to be the one to solve it.

Gross bug in the bathroom? Mama will get it. Sick with a fever? Mama will take you to the doctor. Empty toilet paper roll hanging sadly in the bathroom? Mama will get a new one. Pile of toys on the step that Mama put there in the hopes that the owner of the toys would notice it and take it upstairs to her room but forgot to explicitly tell the owner to do so? Mama will sigh upon stepping over the pile for the seventh time and take them up herself at 11 o'clock that night.

There is something so terrible and isolating - so adult - about knowing that no one else will do it. If you want a clean counter, you have to wipe up the spill. Or you have to stand over your four year old and instruct him on how to properly wipe up the spill, which is in fact harder. Sometimes that spill is no big deal; sometimes it feels weighty and awful. Sometimes a fairy godmother would be nice.

All these years later, living with cancer has taught me that in fact I have a fairy godmother. I have about ten fairy godmothers. There may be more waiting in the wings that I don't even know about.

About two weeks ago I told a couple of friends at a school event that I was tired of managing everything. I wished I could make like a fragile Victorian flower and collapse onto a fainting couch and let other stronger people take care of our impending move. We can help with that! they said, and right before my eyes, they waved their magic wands (i.e. whipped out their phones) and arranged to borrow a truck and have a friend drive it the next week. Emboldened, that night I emailed a few friends and asked for help. They came and transformed the daunting process of moving furniture from Annapolis to Lancaster into a piece of cake.

After Mike's diagnosis and our emergency move to Lancaster, we needed so much help. I was terrified for my kids. I knew I couldn't do it all alone. So I let it be known, and we were indeed showered with loving support. But I was plagued by an uncomfortable, slightly nauseated sensation in the pit of my stomach much of the time because I knew there was no way I could repay it all. Not in my lifetime. Some part of me worried about the debt we were incurring. Not just material help style debt, but friendship debt, kindness debt, spiritual debt. I could never make enough dinners to repay all those meals; I could never send out enough hugs and poems and homemade gifts to balance the scales. I would be in debtor's prison forever, aware that I had simply taken too much.

Can you believe how long it has taken me to finally understand that love is not an economical arrangement?

Nearly two years later, something about our friend Teb instantly agreeing to take a day off work, pick up a truck, drive it 100 miles away, load it with furniture, and drive it 100 miles back - and my own easy acceptance of this gift - made me stand back and really get it. When it hit me, I cried and cried.

I didn't feel anxious receiving his generosity because I knew that we are in this together. We're all of us all in. His actions said: you have a problem? Then I do too. Let's solve it together. And eat burritos and hang out and laugh with other friends who are in it together with us.

I will never feel alone in the way I used to, because I have learned that I'm not alone. I wish it didn't take a life-threatening illness to teach me that. But I'm grateful to know it all the same.

Visit the sick and the imprisoned. Give to the poor. We might go to church, and think of these good works as something we should schedule in on a Tuesday afternoon. And indeed we should. But. I've been thinking a lot about this. Aren't we are all sick, trapped, and poor - to different degrees, in different ways, sometimes varying over the course of a single day? By accepting our suffering, sharing it, extending our love to others from that hurting place - might that be one way to understand what it means to take up our cross?

And by asking for help, are we not inviting those around us to step into a way of being that calls forth their best selves? And encouraging others to do the same?

Sometimes friends try to reassure me when I express discomfort with receiving their support by reminding me how many times in the past I have helped someone else, and that someday, when this difficult time is over, I will again be able to help others in need. That is true, and there is some comfort in it for me. But it isn't the most important truth. I might need a lot of help for a very long time. I can't hang my hat on the hopes of someday being able to properly pay it forward and right the scales.

Because when you're in it together, it doesn't matter. If our burdens belong to all of us, debtor's prison no longer makes any sense. We carry neither our sorrows nor our joys alone.

Consider Gabriel, who when given some kind of treat - ice cream, Halloween candy - will insist on sharing it with you. Usually I am happy to accept, but recently I said no thanks. He urged more insistently. I explained I just wasn't hungry. Please, Mama! Just try a little, he said.

Gabriel, why do you want me to eat this so much? I asked.

Because, he explained, it makes it tastes better when you eat something special together.

Dear friends, if you are lonely - if you need help - consider telling someone you love about it. I wish I had called a friend all those years ago when I was home with little kids and just said: there's a really gross bug in the bathroom and I can't bear to deal with it alone.

Would you come over?