Noticed

When you’re sick, you enter a high-need zone that freaks a lot of people out. You can’t rely on your own strength and ability to do the simplest of tasks, and this means that those around you are often called to higher levels of responsibility.

When I first got sick, I trusted very few people with the real intensity of my health condition, especially as things worsened and I needed more physical support. I learned to live around my health so no one saw. The wheelchair was my freedom. Living by myself kept others from being burdened by my issues. I wasn’t being self-centered; I had needs that HAD to be met. But I never stopped noticing those I loved. I never stopped feeling close to them, wishing I could do more to show my love for them.

Now, as I’m walking through this treatment again, I’m going through the same thing. Pete has had a couple of rough weeks himself, and I feel helpless to do anything to support him. Piper has the chicken pox and Bredon is cutting four or five molars in his tiny mouth. I’m sitting on the couch trying to relax so that their fights don’t set off spasms in my body. I wait for Pete to bring me food because I get so lightheaded getting up.

I really, really, REALLY don’t want to sound like I’m complaining. This is what IS in my life right now. This, and the morning light that comes in, the air conditioning that keeps us cool, one meal idea and another and another, the minute that was, the next minute coming. We are living right now, and I’m noticing it, noticing it so that I cry when things touch me, hug my kiddos a little closer, breathe a little deeper and a little longer when they need help. This is the best sort of thin place, when the worst is here and you see that and you see the best for what it is too.

I don’t know if I’m showing my love any better now than I did then. I miss reading others’ lives, having energy to comment and invest, miss working solid days. I miss my functionality, but I know that this “worse” is a sign that I am getting better. I hate taking my pills, knowing that even the small reprieves I was getting won’t be coming until this runs its course. But I take them because feeling alive again later is worth a lot of helpless now.

I still see, even if I can’t do anything. I still love, even if it’s stopped up in my heart and pretty helpless to act. The deepest gift to me during this time is the heart-sharing I hardly have energy to return. I have so many in my heart. Do you think that maybe sometimes, the noticing might be love enough?