Oh, Laura. You're such a rock.
Someone said that to my mom in the wake of my dad's death. She had two teenage daughters, a house to pay for, throngs of well-wishers to receive, countless arrangements to make, the love of her life to mourn. Good thing she was such a rock, right?
A rock feels no pain! And an island never cries.
(That has become a grand, no fail joke in our family, especially whenever one of us is under serious duress. It's okay, Mom! You're such a ROCK. Ha ha ha. Now ... getting back to me.)
However that comment was intended, it was heard like this: I don't have to worry about you, because you take care of yourself. You've got hard edges. You're dependable, made of stone, and thus off my list of people to listen to, respond to, reach out to. And that is of great value to me, and the rest of the world too. You're low maintenance.
But a rock isn't even alive. Why would anyone aspire to being a rock? Besides Paul Simon?
I've been thinking a lot about this. Why do we expect ourselves to be self-contained, invulnerable, independent - when the realities of our existence suggest something so totally opposite that fantasy? I've had to do a lot of asking for help over the past few months. Why is it so uncomfortable, for me and for most people I know?
Sometimes we don't even like to receive help. Even if we didn't ask for it. I've heard myself, flustered, say things to the effect of: But how can I ever repay you? Or: oh no, you can't buy that coffee for me, I am sure I owe you. We seem to understand giving and receiving as an economic exchange. I can't accept this; I don't want to be indebted to you. What will happen if I can't pay you back, and the balance of our relationship is thrown off?
Sometimes people say, oh don't worry about it, you'll pay it forward someday.
Maybe. But what if I don't? What if I can't? Then I have some kind of cosmic debt on my shoulders to worry about.
A little while ago, there were a few days when I was leaning on my mom for help pretty heavily. Mike must have been sick and I needed help with the kids in order to take care of him. I joked about how she was a rock, as a way to acknowledge that I knew she was taking on a lot. I was worried about her. She very seriously said, Sweetie, I'll be your rock. I want to be your rock. It's okay.
She was conjuring the other, beautiful side of rockiness for me: steadiness, consistency. A cool, sturdy place in which to lean one's weight. She was saying, I'm not going anywhere. It's not in my nature. My nature is to stay here and support you.
I thought about that. I thought about how I knew she was absorbing so much of the difficulty I was going through. I told her okay, yes, she could be my rock. But who, then, was her rock?
Blake.
But. But then who is Blake's rock?
I imagined circles of rocks, one layer sheltering the next. Or maybe stacks of rocks, weathered and sturdy, fit together like in an old stone wall. Because taking care of someone is never just taking care of someone. It's almost always indirectly taking care of others, too. And the effects go both ways: caregivers need support, emotional and material, to do their job. Behind every great caregiver is...another great caregiver.
But a stone wall doesn't quite illustrate my intuition about the structures of caregiving that support all of us, even those of us who are in one of life's delicious moments that offer up the intoxicating mirage of autonomy - the delight and power of not needing anyone. Even then, I think, we rest on the support of many.
Nor does the interdependent web of life quite get to it. Or tangle of threads. Or quilt of many blocks. The best I can come up with is the surface of a cool, deep pond during the first moments of a rainstorm, when the drops appear distinctly one by one, and you can sit on the shore with your toes in the water and watch each one hit the surface and send small ripples outward.
The raindrop hitting the surface is the person in need of help. The first ripple is the first level of caregivers: a sick child's parents, an elderly parent's adult children. The ripple beyond that is those that support the immediate caregivers: those that call and write, bring meals, offer hugs, listen. And the ripples continue throughout the pond's surface. But of course other drops are falling, and rippling outward, and everything overlaps and shifts, responding to the movement of other drops. We can't know how one gesture of kindness will move through this rain shower. Our intertwined interdependence is too complex and deep. It is never as simple as one person making another person dinner. There are countless souls involved in that exchange.
Who is Blake's rock? I have to ask her. Maybe her rock is no longer alive. There is more complexity still to this pond in a rain shower! Those ripples, I think, are not bounded by space and time. They disregard death. How could I possibly do what I do, without the unconditional love shown me as a child by my parents? They are both, alive and dead, rippling around me, supporting me as I support my husband and children. On and on.
So. Why exactly am I doing all this backbending, looking for an image that can communicate what I am struggling to intuit and conceive? Because if I - if we - really believed that we are all part of a rippling complicated body of water (body of Christ, for some of us) that is alive and moving with acts of love and care all the time - well then! - our vulnerability and our need for help would not bother us so much.
We might feel more peacefulness about giving and receiving. We might understand that you don't repay a friend's gift. You don't exactly pay it forward either. You ripple. You generously receive, accepting an act of love, knowing it will move through and past you in every direction. You hope another will give you the same gift of acceptance when you bring a smile, a joke, a question.
Even if that latte came with a price tag, its meaning as a gift is untrackable in any accounts book. Why bother trying? Might as well give in, and enjoy your coffee with your friend.
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