Last weekend I got a bruise. It was on the back of my thigh so it took a mirror to see it. But every time I sat down I remembered the ouch.
Perhaps I was reverting to my prepubescent self but I wanted John to know.
"I have a bruise."
"That's too bad." The reaction was insufficient, so I found an occasion to show the twins. They were more sympathetic.
"Poor Mama! Do you want me to get some arnica to put on it?" Hope offered. I realized I was not especially asking for help. I just wanted someone to acknowledge it.
Years ago when John and I were less aware of how family of origin patterns show up in marriage he got the flu. In his childhood there was a tradition of extra attention for invalids involving homemade soup, fluffy pillows, and cuddles.
But in my family, we were expected to pummel through it. I had asked my sisters and they concurred. I also brought it up with our mom and she paused.
"Well, my mother had twelve children in a small house. She was not one to indulge tummy aches. She could not really afford to coddle. I guess you had to be almost dead for her to notice."
This was the household where one strategy of punishment was to lock you in the closet. Uncle Leon was said to have been forgotten for several hours in solitary.
It was not that you were forced to go to school if you had a rash. Those were the days of quarantine and communicable diseases, so if one Rose had measles the whole lot got to stay home and play. This was grounds for envy among the kids on Alden Road hustling up the hill.
But I digress. When John was holed up in bed moaning, I reverted to ingrained responses and did what my mother and her mother before me had done. I ignored him. This was inconsistent with the way his mother dealt with infirmity. He moaned louder.
I ignored louder.
As chance would have it a friend called him. He found occasion to describe his illness in detail on the phone, and from the long silences I could tell he was receiving copious amounts of sympathy. He got better instantly.
As we are surrounded by the crippling suffering of people all around us, it is easy to collapse into despair. What difference could I possibly make? And yet... Perhaps one of the miracles of life is the chance to simply be a witness to another person's pain.
