I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, one of the most difficult things in this whole cancer journey has been learning to be a recipient of people’s generosity. It’s just hard to feel like a sucker–like someone who is just sucking the life of those around you. It’s hard to be humble enough to willingly receive a gift with a simple “thank you”. Very very difficult.
And yet it’s a beautiful journey to be invited into. It’s a journey that I think all of us need to be invited into from different avenues. What I mean is that some of us do not find the challenge in being a grateful recipient because we’ve been in that role for most of our lives and therefore play it well. Some of us need to learn a posture of thankfulness ’cause we’ve gotten used to the receiving. Others need to learn the posture of thankfully receiving because we’ve taken a posture of authority our whole lives. We’ve often even mistakenly placed ourselves as the rider on the white horse who comes to rescue those three feet below us. Some of us are just prideful. Some of us are just lazy. Some of us are both. And I’m sure there’s one or two of you who are neither.
This week, as we’ve been movin’ rooms around, we had many people offer to help. It was wonderfully overwhelming. In the end it was easier to have just one or two people come to do the work, but it was yet another example of our greater community stepping up in a time of need. Thank you.
The tension that it creates, however, is that there is a line. There is a very blurry and often wandering line that Jess and I are always trying to be aware of. The line has very little to do with you and very much to do with our own emotional and mental health. Because there are times that we might need help but we just don’t want it. We don’t want to always feel like we MUST have helped to survive. We don’t always want to feel like our home is overrun with people (a stark change from how we felt before I was sick to be perfectly honest). We don’t always want help…even when we may need it. Sometimes we just want to be a family. Sometimes we want to pretend like we’re normal, like our life isn’t overrun by the cancer narrative. Sometimes we just don’t want to receive.
And the reality, I think, is that those impulses are not bad. They’re not off. They’re not ‘wrong’ (though I hesitate to use that sticky word). It’s a valuable tension to hold, one that, again, is blurry in its definition but important in its usage. It’s very very important that we, at times, create those boundaries and allow both openness to receiving and protection from it to be a part of our story.
So to Blur the Lines a Bit…
I’m asking for a bit of help here. One of the things that has been hugely helpful has been the occasional meals that people have dropped by for our family. They’ve been a non-intrusive way for people to care for us, it provides a huge relief for us amidst the stress of life, and amidst the time crunch of doctors visits that run up until 5pm often days. Here’s what our friend Sherilee, who is graciously managing all of this, briefly said:
For those of you that know and love Ryan and Jessica Woods…here is a organized way to sign up to bring food. To give them time together and not worry about what to make for supper – a small gift that means so much.
She says “supper” because she’s Canadian–and we forgive her for that–but it is a small way that you can bless our family from near or far away (they’ve suggested that you can order food to have it delivered or creative things of that nature). It’s all online so it’s amazingly easier than ever before! Thank you so much for your participation in caring for our family during this really strange and surprising time of sickness. I hope and pray that one day we look back on this time and see how it was shaping us for a future life together. But if the story is different–if the story continues on the same path that it’s gone thus far then we are especially grateful for every moment that you help to create for us to be together as a family and for me to pursue a path of health as much as is humanly possible in this life.
peace.
As a followup to my 
A little over a year ago a group of people from the neighborhood met in our living room to dream about what our neighborhood could be. We dreamed about how neighbors could connect with neighbors, how neighbors could dream together, and how new things could emerge. It was a great dialog but honestly I don’t remember many specific things from it. The one thing I remember clearly is that after we had got to know each other, dreamed together, and decided that we’d each go back to our neighborhood in order to ‘make a difference’ Oso stood up and somewhat incredulously said “well that sucks. I just got to know all of you (few of us had ever met Oso before this night) and now we’re saying that I won’t see you again? That sucks. I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t want friends, I want more of this!”
My family eats gluten free. My wife has been cooking gluten free for most of our marriage and is actually quite skilled at it. She can bake really good bread, chocolate chip cookies, scones, etc. But I think there’s something inherently off about the gluten free culture. The gf culture is completely concerned with mimicry. All they do is try to recreate gluten-filled foods. They spend great energy (and lots of money!) trying to make bread that is as close to wheat bread as possible. But it is not wheat bread. It’s an impostor. It’s a faker. Instead of a cup of wheat flour you end up throwing in a little brown rice flour, xanthum gum, tapioca starch, and corn starch among other things. It’s not wheat bread. Some really good bakers can make gluten free pastries that taste nearly identical to regular pastries. Its awesome. I love it and crave it.