Today's failure

I have this friend. She's got a mountain-sized rock on her back right now. When she wakes up in the morning and tries to get out of bed, she has to lift this rock. Then, each time she wants to take a step she has that same rock pressing down on her, urging her to give in and be squashed flat. She feels she has to keep going, has to keep lifting and carrying her burden, yet as she looks to the future she can really only see ways for it to get heavy and harder to carry.

I was thinking about this friend yesterday afternoon, so I called her to check in with her. She said she was functioning. I offered to help her today by watching her children for a few hours.

This morning around 10, I arrived at her home to pick them up. I knocked at the door and her three-year-old son opened it with an exuberant "Trick or treat and HAPPY HALLOWEEN." My friend came down her stairs and greeted me. Every time I see her, she looks thinner. I don't think she's eating. The look in her face was saying "I'm just holding it together right now. Just." I hugged her. I'm not a hugger, and neither is she, but there are times when only a hug will do.

I contrived to fit her kids' carseats into my car along with my kids' seats. My kids, out of school due to power outages, were waiting in their seats. I got everyone buckled in, and my friend came to say good bye to her son and daughter.

The three-year-old said to her, starting to cry, "I don't like it when it's different." And he's had a lot of different lately. His mother crumpled. She tried to reassure him, but she was in tears herself. She looked at me and asked, "should I just keep them with me today?"

I told her he would be ok. "He really will," I said.

She cried and hugged me. She said another goodbye to her kids, and Edmund helped me get her son distracted by talking about his candy bucket from Halloween waiting at home. As she walked inside her house, I could see that she was crying again.

Remember: everything is harder with that rock on your back.

I drove away. I was about 5 minutes from her house, when she called me. Apologizing for being a bit "schizophrenic," she asked me if I could just ask her kids if they wanted to come home or if they wanted to go to my house. I asked, and they both said, "We want to go to your house and play."

This didn't make their mother feel better, but it seemed to help her decide to let them stay with me instead of following her desire--that I turn around and bring them right back. I told her I would do whatever she wanted. Bring them home earlier than we'd planned, bring them home when they got sad. Whatever.

She couldn't decide. She didn't know. We made a plan to check in later, and I continued to drive toward my house. Another two stoplights and suddenly I felt wrong about it. Bad. I thought about this and told the feeling to go away. It didn't.

I tried to pray the feeling away, but I couldn't speak the words of my prayer--even inside my own head--because they were wrong. I made excuses to myself. Still not calling her, still not turning around. Still pretending this thing I was doing was right because it was intended to help her.

I was really searching for a reason. Any reason that would help my rational mind know that this instinct was worth following. I sorted through a few potential reasons. After a while, I hit on a reason. Something clicked in my brain. This reason--something my friend didn't know about--rang so true with what I knew of my friend and her situation that I couldn't pretend anymore.

And by the time I came to this, I was at my street some twenty-two minutes from her house.

I got up my courage, and I called her. She answered sounding relieved. She had wanted me to call her. And when I told her my reason, she was so glad that I had. No doubt in her mind now. No question what the decision should be.

Long story short, we got her kids back to her. I spent the next few hours feeling horrible. I had so wanted to help her, but in the end, all I did was complicate her day and give her little son more "different" than necessary.

I tried to help, but I failed. It could all have been avoided if I had thought of that reason yesterday before we made our plans. But I just didn't. And I don't know why.

There she is with her rock. She knows people want to help her, and many people do successfully help her. Instead of feeling horrible that it couldn't be me today, I'm trying to be grateful that she has these other friends who are helping her. I'm so glad she's not stuck with her massive rock and only my flailing attempts to help her.

I'm not giving up. I'll help her another day and another way. But I can't help feeling that today was a failure.