Tag Archives: family dance

What We Need

Posted on by
Reply

Everyone needs help.  There isn’t one of us alive who – at some time in our lives – won’t rely on help from others.

Clearly, we need help in our youth.  Baby to eighteen is a time when most humans need loving care and support from a variety of individuals starting with parents and ending nowhere in sight.  Caregivers, teachers, neighbors, friends, extended family members – There are just too many individuals to mention, and yes, it does take a village – or as I often call it a boatload of folks all rowing in the same direction – to help one person reach the average and usual milestone of adulthood – which often times stretches well beyond eighteen.

We need help during the middle of our lives.  The help we receive is much different than the diaper-changing, hand-holding, tuck-me-in / keep-me-safe assistance we received in our youth.  Often times, we need that gentle push behind us, telling us that our next steps are okay.

We need to know that there is a safety net – strong and wide – even though we have no intention of using it, hopefully.  We need comfort when we make mistakes.  We need to be reminded to laugh when we want to cry, and to cry when we think we can’t.  We need to know that the village is still there, that it hasn’t left us, but is instead standing with us like a herd of elephants at the ready.

During the end of our lives, from what I can see, we need a substantial amount of help, too.  I have watched far too many parents, aunts, uncles, friends and acquaintances reach a different life milestone, the one that is way beyond that middle part, further to what is that end part.  When facing the end, we need help with almost everything, again.

It seems like we actually need more than the village and the herd.  The needs become so great that it isn’t the number of individuals in the village that matters or the size of the elephants in the herd, rather a combination between the two plus time.  We need the village and herd to offer buckets of time and more buckets of time.  And as the journey of life becomes more and more complicated, we need them to double those time buckets again and again.

Caregiving – at any stage – youth, middle, end – isn’t easy.  We all know that it requires skill, patience, attentiveness, and mental acuity that keeps us one step ahead of the people for whom we offer care.  It also takes great models.

It has been my great fortune to have witnessed some of the best – a friend who cared for her dying brother, offering up nearly a year of her life for his care . . . a brother who opened up his home to my father for months. . . my parents who opened up their home (which was my home, too, at the time) to nearly every relative – young and old – who needed anything for any length of time.

I have watched friends adopt children with disabilities, relatives foster teenagers who lack family and guidance, acquaintances move from their homes and devote portions, and sometimes all, of their lives to the care for those in poverty-striken countries.  One of my cousins just recently and reluctantly detailed his work with a local homeless shelter.  He is out caring for those who can not care for themselves a couple miles from his home.  Impressive.

After a couple of years pondering this particular issue  – I am on the slow but sure train –  I have learned that throughout the time that we are caring for the needs of others, we actually are in need ourselves.  Though our needs as caregivers are quite different from the needs of those requiring the care, we still have needs.

We need time to refresh.  This need is perhaps the most common and the most apparent.  Ask any individual caring for the 0-18 set.  After hours, weeks, months of meeting the needs of youth, even the best of caregivers needs break time, recess for adults, a pause moment.  If this time comes with a little solitude – all the better!  Sometimes it only takes a few seconds, sometimes longer to refresh, but we need to refresh.

Call it a coffee break or a vacation.  Whatever it is called, I am a strong advocate for allowing folks who are going above and beyond in their offering of  service to others . . . time.  I am all for a national holiday that celebrates the efforts of those who so selflessly attend to the needs of others.  Call is Bravo Day – and let everyone helping others rest.  It is such a lovely idea, but of course, impossible to do, because we know that caregiving actually has no holiday.  So much for refreshing!!

We also need some type of confirmation that what we are doing is worthy.  Confirmation is different from refreshing.  All of us can provide confirmation.  That confirmation can emanate from the person receiving the care, from the rest of the village members who are also assisting, or from those who are simply watching from the sidelines.  Regardless of source, we need to know that we are of benefit, that we help, that we make a difference.

Even if we are humble, private or modest, we still need affirmation of our efforts.  That affirmation can be as small as a pat on the back, a wink of the eye, a card in the mail, or an utterance of two very powerful words that can never be used enough.  We need it.

So, thank you.

Thank you to every single person who is doing anything to help anyone else.  Thank you for being great parents.  Thank you for being great friends.  Thank you for taking care of someone who is in need.  Thank you for being part of the village and a member of the herd.  Thanks from the bottom of my heart. Please know that I need you.  We need you.  The world needs you.

Flowers

A Moment of Refresh – Missouri Botanical Garden April 2016

 

 

 

The Family Dance

Posted on by
3

For me, it was that incredible memorable family dance moment.

The band was playing what could easily be described as the music of many – the type familiar and beloved by both the young and the old, not too loud and not too slow – music for the ages.

The reception was in full swing. And at that particular moment, I looked around and noticed it immediately: all of us on the dance floor were related. Brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, nieces, nephews, sons, daughters, moms, dads, and grandchildren. All of us were happy, laughing, smiling, and . . . dancing.

Admittedly, we could have never described the dance we were dancing as organized.  It wasn’t refined, or symmetrical. It wasn’t pretty, cultured, or structured.  In fact, if analyzed, it was fairly clunky and chunky.  No one had rehearsed, and although the family talents are many, there are no professional dancers in the mix.  Just a group of folks ranging in age from zero to 80+ who were happy, laughing, smiling, and  . . . dancing.

And, of course, it wasn’t dancing in the very traditional sense.  Rather than pairing up in a Fred Astaire / Ginger Rogers type manner, the dance floor resembled more of a brood, a clutch, a gaggle, or a flock of individuals moving at the same tempo, in the same rhythm, using the same motions, to the same music, dancing that potentially awkward and always interesting family dance.

Large gatherings, such as this one happened to be, are not uncommon in my family.  With six siblings at the core plus twenty-one immediate cousins, all family gatherings end up on the large to very large size. Birthdays, graduations, holidays, weddings just turn into big, giant family celebrations. Luckily, in my family, each relative not only seems to know every other relative well enough to dance, but all family members seem to understand each other and have an over-arching acceptance of and pride in all kinds of similarities and differences among the group.

And with family dancing, it is the differences that can and do shine brightly.

At that particular moment, several folks in the teenage set were not only dancing, but singing madly along with the band leader, unabashed and unafraid of displaying their singing (or non-singing) aptitude.

One family member, who could normally be described as quiet and pensive, in a very brave move, having been coaxed to the dance floor by the young but married cousins, displayed some serious dance motion which added a new piece of delight throughout all.

An uncle was arm in arm with a tiny niece, tapping his foot, simultaneously swinging her in step with the beat of the music, while my sister and I held hands over the backs of our respective spouses with whom we were dancing.

As the music reached a crescendo, with bride and groom center stage – the rest of us broadly encircling them – our pop, a less than spry 80+ year old and only remaining grandparent, decided to join the group.  With his walking more of a chore than a pleasure, his participation surprised all of us.  We stared as he edged so gently and carefully towards the middle and watched as the wall of his grandchildren and children parted to accommodate and include him.

He didn’t know it at the time, nor did we, but he was dancing his final family dance.  And it was magical.

1781868_967544111892_1441363181_n

His dance moves were quaint and soulful.  They were deliberate and slow and filled with youthful joy. As he cautiously swayed to the sounds, his family did the same, holding our breath hoping he was successful and hoping the moment wouldn’t end. For as he danced, he exuded an aura that captured a lifetime of happiness in a family dance that he had helped to generate and foster.

Without a doubt, it was a family dance for the ages.

And though usually during the height of a wedding celebration in the middle of a dance floor surrounded by generations of family, it isn’t the moment to capture a serious life lesson.  But, that’s the magic part of it.

It was obvious to me that the family dance was not for a moment about music and movement.  The band may have played and feet may have shuffled, but it was very incidental to the rhythm of the event.  We were throwing away our challenges and our barriers.  We were delighting in the common family bonds that we had cultivated for many years, and we were family dancing.

I don’t necessarily like the following adage.  It seems tired and overused, but it also seems to be true that life isn’t a short sprint, but rather a long, long journey with moments of challenge, of concern, of worry along with moments of joy, hope, and celebration.

I journey with many family members with whom I sometimes disagree, often disappoint, and always seem to need more than I have the ability to help.  But with enough time and with lots of concerted effort, I am hoping that my journey can include that one last magical moment, that perfect storm, that extraordinary symbiosis, the family dance.

I just have to plan ahead and work hard.  I say bring it on!