Seeing Wholeness in All
I have this friend who is a little compulsive about where stuff belongs. She has a specific place for all of her items and just doesn’t relax until everything is in it’s right place. This can be a difficult way to be in the world; For her, what makes it even more difficult is that she is physically limited in her movement. Once she gets in bed, she can’t get back out without using her call button to get an attendant to help her.
I tell you this so that you can grasp the depth of what I am going to tell you next.
I spend a lot of time with her in the evenings. She is always already in bed when I visit, so I sit in the room with her and watch TV until she is ready to fall asleep. At that point, I help her get all the items on her bedside table in the right place and put out a few things that she will want in the morning.
Now, I’m sure you are starting to think that I am such a nice person to do this. Hang on a little longer.
Last night, I was in a particular mood. As we were putting the items in their correct spot (in this case putting the lotion in just the right place by the sink, a place she can not see from her bed) I came back out of the bathroom and announced that the lotion was on the back of the toilet. This is of course a violation of her need to have everything in the right place, and I had actually put the lotion in it’s correct place, but I just had to play a little. Her response was something close to how someone would respond to fingernails on a chalkboard. She knew, instinctively, that I was joking, but she couldn’t help it.
We laughed and she once again told me where the lotion should go, and I once again told her it was in the wrong place. We laughed some more and I finally relented and told her it was in the right place. She relaxed and we both laughed at how important it was for her to hear me say it was in the right place. At this point, her husband got in on the game and told her he put her eyeglasses in the wrong place. Again, we all laughed. It’s been awhile since I have seen that big a smile on all of our faces at the same time.
This is one of the strange ways we humans tell each other how much we care. We notice some quirk and then use it to poke a little fun. We are essentially saying “I see you and love you the way you are.”
I notice that when we are around someone who has a physical limitation, that we are often much “too careful.” In our attempt to not be rude, we overcompensate, and this tends to have the effect that the other person doesn’t feel seen; it feels to them like we are only seeing their limitations. It is a fine and delicate line when someone needs physical assistance, to help with the physical and at the same time see their wholeness.
One of my closest childhood friends was severely physically limited. The first day we met (the first day of third grade) she went home crying to her mother. She was so happy, it had been the best day of her life; one of her classmates had gotten mad at her for not raising her hand when the teacher asked all new students to raise their hands! That was me; I was a stickler for the rules. What had made her so happy was that I was treating her as “normal”; I had failed to notice that she couldn’t raise her had. I didn’t do any of that on purpose; I just didn’t see what everyone else saw when they looked at her. Before that, it had never occurred to me how great it could be to have someone get mad at you. For her, my getting mad, my treating her as if she was expected to follow the rules, not making an exception for her, made her feel included in life.
So, the other night when I just had to tease my friend about the location of the lotion, I was reminding her that I still know she is whole and that I love her.
At some point in all our lives we will spend time with someone who has some limitations. Taking a little extra time to find the place inside yourselves where you can connect with their wholeness will be one of the biggest gifts you can give them, and yourself.