201. What Do I Do

When your loved one is going through a hard time (illness, divorce, grief) we often find ourselves asking “what can I do for them?” Nora has a pep talk for those of you adjacent to suffering, and how you can help the people you love.

Transcripts may not appear in their final version and are subject to change.

Nora: People ask me, often, what they’re supposed to do when something goes wrong with someone they know: when the pregnancy doesn’t work out, when the relationship ends, when the experimental treatment isn’t a cure. 

What are you supposed to do when the worst case scenario becomes reality? There has to be something we can do. Something that will fix things, or at least staunch the wound. Something that will lighten the burden, strike a match in the darkness, let people know that we are here, that we care.

Our fear is not just that we will do the wrong thing, but that whatever we do won’t be enough.

And of course it won’t.

That’s not the point.

The point is not that you, one little human person, will somehow place the world on your tiny shoulders. The point is not that you, one little human person, will be the first of any little human persons to fix the problem of human suffering. 

The point is that you, one little human person, are showing up.

If you ask me what you are supposed to do when your sister’s husband dies, when your friend’s dog has cancer, when your coworker is the meat in an intergenerational caregiving sandwich, I will say, well, I don’t really know. I don’t know you. I don’t know your friends, your sister, your coworker.

But I can also tell you this: that the secret lies in a Venn Diagram.

There’s what you CAN do – competently

And there’s what you WILL do – humbly and, if possible, consistently.

There in the middle is your answer.

My husband Aaron died November 25 in Minneapolis, MN and there were already snowbanks forming. His funeral was our wedding anniversary, December 3. Every time it snowed, I would wake up to the sound of something on our roof. It was our neighbor, Mark. He was sweeping all of the snow off my roof because the roof was old and the attic was underinsulated and he didn’t want me to get ice dams in the spring. When he was done, he’d snow blow my VERY LONG driveway, my walkway…and go to work.

Mark was a handy guy, and a sweet one. He didn’t offer to do my taxes because he wasn’t an accountant. He didn’t bake me a casserole. And he never mentioned that it was him who was doing this. He didn’t check in to say, hey, did you notice your driveway was cleared and salted? He didn’t need a thank-you note. 

He just did what he could, and what he would, and he kept doing it until the snow melted.

It’s just that easy. And it’s just that hard.

Because there’s no knowing if you’re doing the right or wrong thing until you do something, until you risk trying, risk helping, risk revealing your own human incompetence. 

But I can tell you that of all the things people did right, of all the things people did wrong, what hurt the most was when people did nothing. So send a text. Send a gift card. Shovel a walkway. Drop off a casserole. Send flowers. Risk never knowing whether your gesture was appreciated, or being told, hey, I’m actually celiac so I can’t eat your tater tot hot dish sorry.

What do you do when something falls apart for someone you care about?

Your best.