Pop 89: Just Call!
By Madonna Hamel
How many times have you said to a friend who has gone through a dramatic life change, such as an illness, a job loss, or a death in the family: “If you need anything, just call.” Well, I am here to yell at you: “YOU call!” Do not wait for someone to pick up the 500-pound phone when in the depths of debilitating despair or grief; YOU pick it up. Then you make that casserole and carry it to their house.
Grief columnist Dettra Rose writes: “Don’t say to a friend in need: ‘Let me know if you need anything’ because I am 99.9% sure your friend won’t contact you. First, because they probably can’t reach out and, second, because they may have no clue about what they need. So take the reins.”
Do not wait for someone lost and confused to make that first move. You suit up and show up. That is the stuff of real friendship, neighbourliness and that much-bandied about word: “community” ( too often used in press conferences by people who have never shown up to mow the grass or break bread with members of their “community”.) Being there for others is what constitutes a community - not shared ideologies, enemies or needles. A community, like a healthy family, and ultimately society at large, should bring comfort and care and sanity to each other’s life.
And no, texting your grieving friend does not count. We may rationalize that texting is our way of “not intruding,” but it’s insulting when the recipient is suffering from something greater than a spat with a boyfriend or a cancelled lunch. Rose writes that texting is a valid way to make contact without feeling you’re intruding only if followed with: “I will bring food round after work. See you at 5.30.”
Texting is the “easy” way out. The text option has put us out touch with the immediacy of intimacy that comes with talking with someone, in-person, in real time, mid-sorrow, where we are “forced” to hear exactly where the other person is at. Why do we feel forced? Why aren’t we eager to know how our friend is feeling? Perhaps some of us, especially those of us born into a world of cell phones, have never developed the skill of “being there.” And worse, some of us belong to a generation granted the absurd right to remain aloof due to possible micro-aggressions or triggers pertaining another’s suffering.
Ask yourself, who are you making it easy for by taking the easy option? Maybe you can’t leave what you are doing at that moment, but you can listen. In fact, listening is the greatest gift you can give. Not fixing or giving advice but just listening. Listening, though it seems passive, is an active skill. And even more than that: it is a gift. And I know, because until my brother’s stroke I really sucked at it.
What I have learned, watching my own behaviour as well as my brother’s heroic progress through the effects of his stroke, is that when I get scared I get impatient, even angry. But I am not angry at him. Or even me. I am angry at the situation that makes me aware of how I can’t fix things.
When things go smoothly I don’t have to think about how life goes on with or without my veto. But then things get turned upside down and I want to direct the outcome of every little thing and I need a 12-step meeting where I am in lifelong recovery from needing to have a say over the machinations of the universe, especially as it affects my loved ones. The goal of 12-step groups in three words is: Stop Playing God! A Buddhist translates that as: Practice Non-attachment to Outcome.
When things don’t go as I - self-designated deity- planned, then I turn to food, drink, sex, drugs whatever obliterating substance or behaviour best dulls the pain. It seems like an act of kindness to I try to make things better for others, but often what’s really happening is I’m trying to make myself feel better, instead of learning to sit with another’s uncomfortable or downright excruciating reality.
I’ve learned a lot from my brother. If I can’t bear to hear a brother’s pain, he might start telling jokes, lightening the mood, saying reassuring things to make me feel better. And then it becomes about me, no longer him and his struggles.
I’ve also learned from the likes of my fellow Val Marian and fellow West Central voice columnist Angie Clement. Here’s her wisdom about what it’s like for those on the grieving, suffering end of things:
We assume that “people don’t want or need to hear how we are really doing and so we will reply with the usual response which is ‘fine’, ‘OK’ or ‘good’. It is just easier than trying to explain how we are truly feeling, sometimes we don’t even know ourselves …” So, “How do you measure how you are doing? I have noticed that a lot of people who are grieving gauge how they are doing by how much they cry….But it’s important to base it on your overall being and wellness in that moment.”
And then there’s that whole group of people we decide aren’t worth caring about. They don’t belong to our tribe. They don’t share our ideologies.They aren’t part of our tribe. But I say: humanity is our tribe. My brother and I don’t see eye to eye on many things, but love of neighbour and brother takes a back seat to politics we all lose.
A bout of suffering can strip our lives of pettiness, busyness, and diversions. Or it can raise the walls higher. It can solidify friendships or break them. This is when love goes deep or reveals its provisos, when we can choose who we want as a neighbour or become one.