When the Heart Flowers into Love
Receiving the gifts of caregiving
I am not so sure I can write about love. It’s so big, the feeling, and the action, actions.
*
I cried last night from the sheer power of it. It felt so good to let the tears out.
Sitting in my study, Gregory already in bed, I had just rubbed some medicinal cannabis salve into his shoulder. He’d had a massage earlier in the afternoon and was in pain from the pummelling he’d received.
I said I would be in bed shortly.
Ten minutes earlier, he’d walked into my study while I was halfway into a movie I was watching solo.
“To unwind,” he reminded me, as I smoothed the skin around his right shoulder blade. “You are allowed to unwind from your day.”
I had felt guilty for watching and watching alone.
He hadn’t knocked, which he usually does. Or maybe he had but I had my earbuds in. He was naked, holding a crumpled grey t-shirt in his hand.
My heart tender toward him, I’d stood up and followed him into the bedroom. After working the salve into his bony scapula and the soft skin between it and his spine, and listening to his ouches and ohhhs in response to my touch, I returned to my study.
Lit a candle.
Sat on my cushioned daybed in my black undies and bra, meditation shawl wrapped around me, and held myself. Let my mind wander.
It went to the children, those precious beings I spend time with at the elementary school, four days a week. How our relationships are blooming. How they cuddle up to me, run up and hug me, ask if they can spend recess with me.
Sometimes they just need me to listen, to help them get a bandaid, or put their coat and shoes on.
Sometimes they need a walk around the school, a witness to their sorrows, frustration or joy.
Sometimes they need me to let them be angry, to throw things around, but not at me.
Lucky to be invited into their minds, hearts and creativity, I crouch at the low tables, revel in the colours of their paintings, wonder at their stories, marvel at the reasons they brought this or that to show n’ tell. I listen and inside, my heart blows up like a balloon. Inside me there is a sun shining ear to ear, head to foot. Inside there is a circle of cheerleaders doing the hip hip hooray on the playing field.
When they talk to me about their worries and fears, I wonder what good thing I did to deserve their confidence.
When I hear their doubts about their abilities to draw figures, calculate math, write or read aloud, I wonder what words I can say to reassure them of their intelligence.
Sometimes they call my name for support with loosening a thermos turned too tight, or borrowing a spoon for their yoghurt.
“Can you help me, Ahava?”
My heart swells as they ask, already knowing how I will answer and so excited to say it.
“Yes I can help you.”
Thank you for asking, for trusting me with your little needs and wants.
Thank you for sharing your big thoughts and dreams and questions with me.
Thank you for letting me accompany you into the classroom, through the hallway, down (and up) the stairs, around the playground.
The gift of it. Not what I had imagined. Yet the heart grows into it, the sweet intention to love these ones here.
These tears now, like those last night, about my love for the children. A sweet innocent love.
And those this morning, as I wept over the red poppy in the backyard with the buxom brown ball of stamens. Wept for its magnificent beauty and radiant design. Wept for the divine mystery of this bright, unexpected being.
Is it all the same love?
Maybe that is a part of love. The unexpected.
Like the dream I awoke from this morning in which I was in a car with someone; I think it was Gregory or my dad. We were out of control, veering toward the right side of the highway. Unable to avoid it, we collided with the metal barrier, which bent out of shape, taking us over and through the air. We remained in the car, as it descended to the ground. Then I felt my feet reach for pavement, and land softly. No harm done. As we walked away, I queried: “Shall we go to a café?”
When I recounted it to Gregory upon waking, he suggested it pointed to how I am engaging in life right now, with equanimity, calmness and surrender.
It’s true. I am, surprisingly. After all the resistance, fear, anxiety of the last three years. Something has shifted.
“Can we take a shower together?” He asked me last weekend. “I need help to wash my hair and scrub my face.”
“Sure,” I responded.
“I thought we could make it into love-play!” He added, his face widening into a smile as he acknowledged his desire for romance while showering.
“That sounds lovely.”
I stepped in, he was already there, the water on. I maneuvered under the spray for a dousing then turned to him and moved in for a kiss. Then the love-play began. I listened well, as he instructed me on what to do first, second and next. He is learning how to tell me precisely what he needs.
I lathered the shampoo into his hair and scalp, then soaked an organic cotton cloth with water and laid it gently over his face. Slowly I made soft circles around his forehead, eyes, cheeks and mouth. A gentle exfoliation. I love doing this for myself when I shower alone.
“Don’t forget my nose,” he nudged.
After scrubbing the skin on his neck, chest and arms, I continued with his belly, buttocks and legs, then squatted to tend his feet, ankles, between each toe.
With each gentle stroke, I felt the excitement arise. No heavy breathing. We shut the water at times to focus on the care.
The metal grab bar—a rusty remnant from the woman who used to own the house, raised the now 40-year old garden and lived here into her 90s—was helpful. I’d been eyeing it, wishing it disappeared. Now I plan for another one or two to come.
A feeling of beauty filled me as I felt the service of it. Towel-drying was next. After dressing himself, he returned to ask for a second dry of his bearded chin.
I made love in the shower with my husband. Tender petting. It was sweet, innocent. Humbling, for us both.
The gift of it. Not what I had imagined. Yet the heart grows into it, the intention to love this one here.
How brave, this growing old. Accompanying your beloved through illness, loss of abilities, identities.
Courageous, my friend Sarah called it. From the french word coeur, heart.
It is hard to see him suffer so much from the pain. To watch him struggle to dig the fork or spoon—he uses both, one in each hand, alternately—into the homemade Brazilian bean stew or lentil soup or penne pasta he labours over for hours, pausing to crouch and stretch his shoulders, or lie on the mat to crack his back.
“Do you need anything else? How can I help you?”
What I mean is, how can I take it away from you, this pain, this discomfort, this erasing of dexterity and autonomy and activity. Thing is, I can’t. Nor can I take away his tremor or “old-man shuffle,” nor the frustration or thoughts of wanting to give up.
I can stir the pot, dice the garlic, peel the onions. Wash the dishes. Do the laundry.
I can go to work with the children.
I can love the children and love Gregory.
I can weep for the beauty of the children and Gregory and the poppy, and every other being I encounter. The lupines and nootka roses and other flowering bushes and trees along the roads now that feel like they are hugging me as I drive by them in Bella, my Miata.
In the dream, I walked away from the car. Upright, undamaged.
“Shall we go to a café?” I asked. We’d survived the collision, the descent.
I started to walk toward the café, no worry whether my legs would take me there, nor if I would be able to hold the cup of tea or the cookie.
No worry if my hands would be steady or my body relaxed.
*
This resilience, where does it come from? The calm that gathers Gregory and I up in its warm embrace and leads us into the next moment with grace, through struggle, into kindness and a dance with our heads leaning into each other, our hearts beating together to the slow tune of the song.
“I don’t know how my body moves anymore. I have to take it one step at a time,” he says to me as we hover in the living room, our bodies barely moving.
“I am here with you. Listening. We will move however you can.” My forehead against his, my soul savouring this intimate space we are in.
It’s so big, the feeling, I know it well.
The gift of it. Not what I had imagined. Yet the heart grows into it, the sweet intention to love.
