Tag: assistance

Posted on

Looking In

In the wake of an attack, normality can be the strangest thing of all.

When the first reports came out of London, my heart sank. This seemed to have the earmarks of a scene that we’d witnessed many times in different forms – the public spectacle, the first word of fatalities, the wait for information that would link this all to terrorism. The chaos had begun again and I waited to see the next familiar steps of the dance.

And then someone turned down the music.

I don’t mean that the attacks near Parliament completely fell off the radar screen. But for an American, unless you were looking for more accounts, they seemed to get quickly pushed to the background. By Saturday,  if you did a quick drive-by of online news and social media, it’d be easy for someone on this side of the Atlantic to miss that anything had happened at all.

Why?

The distance? France was farther and #prayforparis remained an online trend for days in 2015.

The low number of casualties? It’s true that this produced (thankfully) few deaths – no bombs in the crowd, no mass shootings or falling buildings to endanger more lives.

The most likely explanation, my reporter brain suspects, is that there’s only so much media oxygen to consume and most of America’s was being tied up in the Congressional health-care drama as the Republican proposals came to a screeching halt. What was left seemed to be consumed by the intelligence hearings. That sort of follow-the-leader isn’t uncommon, especially when local stakes are high and newsroom budgets are thin.

But when even the social media ripples are few (outside of English friends and sources, of course),  that suggests that much of the audience has moved on, too.

This either suggests something very good or very bad.

On the one hand it could mean that, like the English during the Blitz of World War II, we’ve finally become good at carrying on normal life in the face of those trying to disrupt it, that we’ve gained some perspective about how to sort out the severe from the sad. I’d like to think that, I really would.

But it’s also possible that there are just too many alarms on the bridge. When crises seem to fill the headlines, when every story demands your attention (with or without justification), how easy is it to become numb to one more alert? At what point are there too many things to invest your heart in any given one?

At what point do people, do countries, say “Forget the rest of the world, I’ve got my own problems?”

It’s easy to do. Problems need to be attended to, whether it’s a fight to make sure your family is cared for, or a struggle to address or prevent national calamities. Attention can’t be everywhere and priorities have to be made.

But when eyes turn too far inward, when our neighbor’s problems become invisible in the face of our own, we become less of an “us” and more of a crowd of scattered “me’s.” Worse, we miss the chances for shared strength that can come as we reach for each other and face down our mutual problems as one.

We don’t need to be traumatized by every new peal of the bell. That way lies fatigue and madness. But we can’t close the door and pull the shades either. Care for self and care for others need not be exclusive from one another. Should not be. Cannot be.

Be someone’s helping hand. Be someone’s neighbor. Even if all you can offer is attention and sympathy, pay it. It spends well.

Together, we can build a “normal” worth having.

Posted on

Rushing to Help

With bowls and ingredients in hand, my wife Heather armed herself to make my birthday cake. Naturally, Missy jumped to help, eyes aglow.

For those of you who remember my previous chronicles of our disabled aunt/ward, who’s 43 in physical age but much younger in heart and soul, you may recall that she lives life with enthusiasm. So when she helps out in the kitchen, Missy throws everything she has into it – in more ways than one. As Heather later related it, the script for the afternoon looked something like this:

HEATHER: “Oooh, hang on.”

MISSY: (Begins plopping spoonfuls of cocoa directly on the cake.)

HEATHER: “Wait, honey, I have a bowl.”

MISSY: (Drops two-thirds of the cocoa and most of a bag of sugar in the bowl.)

HEATHER: (Turns around from softening butter) “Oh, my goodness, hang on, that’s a lot of cocoa!”

The result was perhaps the most well-frosted cake in the sidereal universe, along with a broadly smiling Missy and a thoroughly exhausted Heather. Rarely has a baker been so eager to light the candles.

It’s not the first time Missy has hurried to assist around the house. If we start to hang up clothes, she immediately grabs a hanger and a shirt – though her coordination is such that she often tries to place a sleeve on the hook rather than the base. In dish washing, she’s quick to rinse and eager to help empty the dishwasher – but it sometimes takes a sharp eye to make sure that dirty glasses don’t join the clean ones on the shelf.

So yes, at times, Missy’s help requires an extra dose of attention. It can leave you feeling a bit wrung out by the end of the task. Sometimes it’s even tempting to quote Max Bialystock in “The Producers” and say “Don’t help me.”

But when a willing spirit offers, what can you say but yes?

It’s something that’s familiar to a lot of political movements these days. When groups have a common overall cause but different agendas, a lot of energy can be wasted on internal friction as each decides the other isn’t “doing it right.”

“Don’t you know that …?”

“Where were you when … ?”

“Oh, this is so important, but what about …”

Without careful attention, a movement can end up going sideways rather than forward, unclear where its next step should be and how it should be taken. Again, it’s tempting to say “Go tend your own garden and leave mine alone.”

But that kind of splintering results in a lot of small nudges rather than one big push. And it misses so many opportunities.

As with Missy help, it can be a teaching moment. An awkward alliance can be a chance for everyone to truly learn another’s cause, history, and motivations.

Even more so, it forces you to pay attention to the task at hand. We spend a lot of our life on auto-pilot, doing familiar things in familiar ways. But when you have to keep an eye on how someone else is washing the dishes, you also focus more carefully on your own. If you have to instruct someone else on your goals and tactics, you’re also reminding yourself.

The enthusiasm can make things take longer. But with care, it can also produce a satisfying result – and just maybe, some long-term lessons that stick with everybody for the next time.

As it happens, the cake was beautiful. Sure, the frosting was a bit thick and the sprinkles were all in one small area. But it didn’t matter. The result was something sweet, to the taste buds and the heart.

So thank you, Missy, for helping out Heather.

When it comes to assistance, you really take the cake.

Posted on

If There’s Anything …

I’m tempted to just write the words “Thank you” and be done with it this week. After all, what else is there for me to say?

I’m referring, of course, to the steady stream of comments, offers and good wishes that followed the appearance of last week’s column, where I noted that my wife Heather had been diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. That included the oddly celebratory mood both of us had been feeling, since we had finally ripped the mask off our opponent and knew what we were fighting.

Pieces like that are always a little risky to write. My oldest rule for this column, taught to me a long time ago, is “No navel gazing” – anything said here has to be of interest to more than just me. There has to be a universal tie, something for a reader to latch onto and care about, even in the most personal of stories.

Even so, I was shocked at just how many of you turned out to care very much indeed.

Some of you shared words of encouragement or stories of friends and family with MS that kept living normal lives. Others had suggestions for how diet could help Heather, or how activity could. A couple of very powerful accounts talked of their own struggles to put a name to a chronic condition and how isolating and painful it could be to just not know.

And of course, from friends and family across the board, we’ve heard the invocation: “If there’s anything I can do …”

Simple words. Powerful ones, too.

We’ve all said it, of course. Often when we don’t know what else to say. The times when the mountain seems so large and threatening, a mystery too great to even comprehend – and yet, we know we can’t let a friend go up it alone.

And so, when the hard news comes, we reach out a hand. Maybe with a confident grip, maybe unsure of our own strength and ability. After all, sometimes there isn’t much one can do. The late, great fantasy author Terry Pratchett, who died recently from Alzheimer’s-related complications, once said that he appreciated the sentiment but was only accepting offers from “very high-end experts in brain chemistry.”

But it does help. More than anyone realizes.

Pain isolates. It can be the physical pain of an illness, the emotional pain of a death, the all-consuming anguish of news too terrible to comprehend. All of it tries to draw limits, to seal us off from the world, to trap us in our own bodies and heads.

Granted, some withdrawal can be necessary to heal. But it’s easy to get trapped in the cycle, to become convinced that you have to deal with this yourself, that you don’t want to be a burden. It feels like a surrender to ask for help, an admission that you’ve lost control.

And then, someone reaches beyond the walls.

It may not be huge. It may not even be much more than the words themselves. But like a candle in the night, it becomes a small gesture that changes the landscape.

Someone cares.

Someone noticed.

Someone wants to help, even if they’re not quite sure how.

Someone’s heart has opened to me.

That is a powerful realization.

A friend recently reminded me that it’s a gift to allow others to give. It’s a harder lesson than it sounds. But a true one.

In admitting our mutual need, we summon our mutual strength. We become a family. No … we remind ourselves of the family that we already are.

Thank you for that reminder.

“If there’s anything I can do ….”

Trust me. You certainly have.

Posted on

In The Blink of an Eye

Pay no attention to the eye doctor, Scott.

Yes, he is going to be holding a needle in his hand. Yes, it will be approaching your eyelid. But we’re not going to think about that, right? We’re just going to lie back and breathe and get nice and relaxed and cozy …

“Aaaah!”

You thought about it. Didn’t you?

One more try. Deep breath. No, steady breath. A deep breath warns your body that something’s wrong, that you’re about to plunge into shark-infested waters. No, we’re calm. We’re calm. See how calm we are? Nothing out of the ordinary, doot-do-doo, oh, look, here comes the nice doctor reaching for my right eye…

Oh, look, there I go making the Olympic high jump team.

“And we’re done,” the doctor said, setting up an appointment for a second try to remove my eyelid cyst – this time, with medication.

And the patented Scott Rochat Whole-Body Eye Defense triumphs again.

Darn it.

Some people have a blink reflex. I am a blink reflex. Ever since the age of 15, I’ve known that my body will intercept threats to the eye faster than Bruce Lee, Chuck Norris and Mr. Miyagi combined. No conscious thought required: the jumps, squirms and jerks of Eye Fu are completely instinctive, a true union with the Tao … or at least with the “Ow.”

As you might guess, this presents a few problems.

I’ve never worn contact lenses, for obvious reasons.

Theatrical makeup takes three times as long to put on as it should, and sometimes requires a second person to hold me steady.

Even giving me eye drops require catching me off guard – at which point, the chances of success rise to 50-50.

So when I had a head-to-head collision last summer with Blake, the Dog of Steel – well, can you blame me for thinking/hoping/praying that the bump on my eyelid was a bruise? Or at worst, scar tissue?

No such look. I mean, luck.

Sigh.

I suspect most of us have similar weak spots, that one fear or reflex we can’t master, no matter how important it may be. My wife Heather can face the prospect of major surgery with firm resolution, but the approach of a tongue depressor will send her running to the nearest wastebasket as her gag reflex goes into overdrive. A former Denver Post columnist, Mark Obmascik, once wrote about a hiking partner who had such an aversion to needles that the man blacked out during an interjection – and came to in the parking lot, learning that he had punched the nurse and fought his way out of the hospital.

The mind may know better. But it’s not in the driver’s seat anymore.

There’s an irony to writing this so soon after New Year’s. After all, this is the time for grand resolutions, for the conviction that life can be changed for the better and that we’re the ones to do it. That we can control ourselves, take charge of our circumstances, make ourselves into the people we want to be.

That’s not a bad attitude. And it can lead to some great things. But even the best will in the world can hit limits. The spirit is willing, and all that.

And in a weird way, that’s reassuring.

It’s good to be reminded sometimes that I don’t control everything. It’s good to be reminded that I have to make allowances for others, to account for a world with its own drives and imperatives, even to – hardest of all – ask for help. I need to remember that “what I want” isn’t the most important thing in the world, that even my own body is a gift for today that might not answer the wheel tomorrow.

It’s called humility. Not the most common attitude in America these days, I know. But vital.

If it means some frustration at times, so be it. I’ll get through it. My reflexes are real and they have to be accommodated, but accommodation doesn’t mean surrender. This can be done.

Am I sure?

Eye-eye, sir.

Posted on

A Little Something Extra

I read the email twice. Three times. It didn’t change. It wasn’t a prank.

Which meant I really did have three and a half days of vacation I hadn’t known about.

Wow.

How?

It didn’t seem possible. Not this year, anyway. “Lucky” 2013 had been the Year of the Minor Family Emergency for our house, after all. It was like a dark version of Old McDonald’s Farm: here a flu, there a strain, everywhere a … ah, you got the idea.

With each micro-crisis, another couple of days off got eaten up. Soon sick time was gone and the rest was going, like some survivor in a post-apocalyptic movie who throws Louis XIV furniture on the fire just to hold off a blizzard.

Finally, I’d counted off the last of my time. Or thought I had, anyway. But there it was.

Part of me gave three cheers for reporter math skills.

The rest reached back to grade school. And the year of the Christmas Map.

It had been a pretty successful holiday that year, all things considered. My sisters and I had carried off our usual plot to wake Grandma on Christmas morning, who then helped us softly sing off-kilter carols as we waited for Mom and Dad:

 

While shepherds washed their socks by night, all seated round the tub …

 

Followed quickly by that seasonal favorite:

 

Good King Wensceslas looked out, in his pink pajamas …

 

The day dawned into family and fun and books and games and the sorts of childhood memories you want to have on Dec. 25. But as we started to break up the morning revelry, Dad took a glance at the tree and then at me.

“I think you missed one.”

I looked again.

Long and skinny, it looked like a forgotten roll of wrapping paper tucked out of the way. A few quick rips revealed the truth: it was a map. One of those great Rand McNally-style wall maps of the U.S., with bright colors and thick sprinklings of small towns, perfect for journeys of the imagination.

It hadn’t been on any list or in any letter to Santa. But the surprise made it all the more fun, an unexpected present sneaking in the door.

And I’d almost missed it.

It’s easy to do, and not just with the ones that look like gift-wrap. I think many of us count stresses more readily than blessings these days – the stacked-up highway traffic, the cough that takes three weeks to leave, the bill that’s waiting still one more week to get paid. We all know the list and it starts to get deadening after a while, to the nerves and the soul.

But then there are the other moments. The ones hidden behind the tree.

For me, this year, a lot of those gifts have been wrapped in people. Like the friend who unexpectedly appeared at the grocery store, in time to help change a flat tire. Or the one who sent us a puzzle book in the mail one day, just because. Or even the online acquaintance who’s never met me but sent a shoutout during the flood to be sure I was OK.

Unexpected gifts, all of them.

Wonderful to give. Even better to be, especially at this time of year. After all, what is this season about if not a present that no one was expecting?

I wonder whose gift I can be.

I suppose I’ve got an extra three and a half days to figure it out.