You're Doing it Good
I have a history (an old pattern that I like to think I’ve broken) of overdoing. For years and years and years, I overcompensated in a gazillion ways, thinking that’s what I had to do to receive love. That I had to DO something (and A LOT) to receive love.
I know now that to be 1000% untrue. All my spiritual healing, my therapy, my Al-Anon (you name it, I’ve done it haha - ook at THAT overdoing!) has taught me and brought me to know that I am inherently worthy of love. I actually don’t have to DO anything.
But I am still navigating what this looks like in daily life.
I still contemplate when and how to show up for someone who’s not asking for it. Is it my ego wanting to help? My old patterns of overcompensating? Or is it coming from my heart?
I also really appreciate “giving a person the dignity of their own experience.”
So when Mike didn’t clearly ask me for help, I stayed back. I watched. I listened. I stayed ready, open, and available for when he did ask for help.
Sometimes I would hear news about his health and feel the urge to leap into action. Was that my ego or my heart? I would constantly ask myself.
And I still don’t know.
Mike had his elderly mother taking care of him, and his big brother too. But he had no wife, no intimate female relationship, no children. He had lots of friends and family who really showed up for him.
But I still ask myself: Was I to do more?
Unfortunately, by the time I really wanted to ask questions like that, and really get into the nitty gritty with him about how he wanted his end of life to look, and whether I could support him more, he was already losing his speech and couldn’t get many of his thoughts into words.
So I just kept showing up.
Back in November, when he was in the hospital for a couple of weeks, his brother started indirectly asking me for help. Adding me to emails with doctors. Contemplating next steps of care. Do I know any live-in caregivers? Can you keep the kids? Can you talk to my mom? Maybe she’ll hear you?
A team of cohesive helpers started to form: best friend, brother, cousin, me. Texting each other updates and logistical questions.
Me always holding the light.
I knew Mike wanted to get home. We all knew it, but no one wanted to say it out loud or press the doctors or his mom.
One day I said to Mike, completely organically, “We are trying to get you home, Mike.”
He was pretty nonverbal at that point, but he burst into tears.
By some grace, when I said that, the room was full of his oncologist, the attending doctor, a nurse, and his big brother on speakerphone.
And so it began.
Big brother gets into action. Relaying the message to the mom. Pressing the doctors. Hiring the live-in help.
Cousin flies in and starts learning about his meds.
Best friend helps order supplies.
The team assembles.
I hold the light.
On the day of Mike’s discharge, the energy is light. We are doing it. He is going home. And with the intention of staying home.
Nobody knows exactly what that means yet. But we are getting him home.
Before we leave the hospital room, it is Mike, cousin, big brother, and me.
I stop the boys (actually, they are men, but when the three of them are together they are still goofy and playful like the young boys they grew up as), and I say to Mike, but really to everyone:
“Mike, we all want to make sure you are getting what you need and what YOU want. So we will just keep talking about this, okay?”
He didn’t verbally respond, but he hugged me.
He hugged me long and tight, like he always did.
Mike’s hugs were the best. We just melted into each other.
And as the three of us walked out of the room (cousin pushing Mike in the wheelchair, big brother next to them) Mike looked at me and struggled to get out:
“You’re doing it good.”
Since you shared this story about presence, grief, and emotional processing, I’m also sharing a short video reflection this week about the question many of us quietly ask after loss: Did I do enough?
If you’re carrying grief, second-guessing yourself, or simply needing a softer reminder that presence matters, you’re welcome to watch it here:
Watch the video: “When You Wonder If You Did Enough for Someone You Love”
Sometimes we need reminders that showing up with love really was enough.
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