Okay. I could do this. A trip to visit my daughters in NYC for less than 24 hours. I’m finally healthy these days and there’s a good reason to go and no good reason not to go. But, for most of their lives, I was the mom who didn’t attend events unless I had to and didn’t do things on my own because I never knew when my body would let me down. I tried hard not to go anywhere without a car because that gave me freedom of movement.
I knew I had to pack the suitcase light. So why did I buy the heavy books as a gift — that I’d have to schlep with me? Standing next to my seat on the train, I stared at my suitcase and then at the luggage bin above me. No way was I going to get the bag up there without killing my already very painful back. The heat patch and anti inflammatory meds weren’t making a dent. So now there’s this woman across the aisle also looking at her bag (the same dumbfounded way) and she says to this guy coming our way, “You look strong. Can you lift my heavy bag for me?” He did and I was amazed. It was so easy. Just ask. So I did. The guy laughed (as if to say, what, you think I’m a sucker?) but he did it and I didn’t hurt myself. One hurdle down.
Wouldn’t you know it? The escalator at New York’s Penn Station was broken. I almost cried at the thought of carrying my suitcase (with laptop, charger, books, ostomy supplies, makeup, what else?) up those steps. But I looked around (through my sjogren’s dry eyes that were hurting from the dead air in the train car -I’d forgotten the eye moisturizer) and saw an elevator. So far, so good.
Just 10 blocks to my daughter’s apartment. I weighed the option of walking or taking a cab. It was a beautiful day and I’d love the walk. I could have done it, minus the suitcase. And if my feet weren’t already having a bad neuropathy/pain day so I felt like I was walking on spikes. And, if the wind wasn’t whipping and making my eyes even dryer. So I sucked it up and spent $10 for a 15 minute ride that I could have walked in 10 minutes.
The next 20 hours were mighty fine. It’s amazing how little things, like visiting with your grown daughters, can be such a rush. At dinner, Lucy was telling her friend (I’d come for her graduation from culinary school) how great it was that I was there since for so many years I just didn’t do things like this. Yes, I savored that moment.
Rosalind
Peter Ericson says
Wow. I have to admit my eyes watered up on that… great story. I am going to pass your site on to starprogram.net who’s mission it is to help high school students with CI here in the Upper Valley of NH.
Jackie says
Hello Rosalind: I enjoyed your story because I related to it! Is this you? This quote specifically struck me because you basically summed up my life since diagnosis of MS. I never do things on my own and I don’t attend events unless I have to. But this gave me a little hope that someone else felt exactly as I did and pushed through it!
“I was the mom who didn’t attend events unless I had to and didn’t do things on my own because I never knew when my body would let me down. I tried hard not to go anywhere without a car because that gave me freedom of movement.”
That is me! But thanks for the story. It’s inspiring and I’ll remember it. Jackie
Nancy Wechsler says
While sticking to all my own feminist and other progressive values, who ever really said that to be a feminist meant we could never ask for help, even from a man? If we are in a position of needing help– on the train, trying to get on the train, dealing with luggage, dealing with anything heavy or out of reach, I have found people– men and women, to be more than willing to take a break from their busy schedule to help out. It makes it possible for us to go places and do things, and it makes others actually feel good that they were able to help a complete stranger. We still live in a world, I believe, where people do want to help each other if given the chance. There is no harm in asking, and if at that moment they are really in a rush and can’t help, well maybe someone else who heard you ask for help in a friendly upbeat way will jump in and say “oh– I can do that, glad to help.” In the early days of feminism, which is why I even brought it up, we used to feel if a man opened a door for us they were being patronizing and saying we were not able to open it ourselves, and I agree that that kind of patronizing we don’t need. But it isn’t being anti-feminist if we recognize our own limitations as we get older or more disabled, and ask for help, and find some good human being more than ready and willing to help us. In the end it makes us all better people. What really counts for me around feminism, is not whether I let a man open a door for me, but his politics on affirmative active, reproductive rights, disability rights, dismantling of gender roles, funding for girls and women’s athletics, and whether they would treat all women equally friendly. In other words, I am white. Would they be as willing and open to helping out a woman who is black, or latina, or Indian, or any other race or ethnicity?
Rosalind says
Dear Nancy – You are so right that we can ask for help and appreciate it when it’s given. It’s just not always easy. I also appreciate your comments around the difficulties that people of different race or ethnicity (and I’d add economic class) would encounter. As we know, it just ain’t a fair or just world. Warmly, Rosalind