The Helpers
This past week, I was reminded that in dark times, it’s always possible to find the light, especially when the helpers let it in.
This morning, while my friend Julie and I were walking in the woods, I noticed a bent tree. Despite coming up vertically from the ground like the rest of the trees surrounding it, the trunk made a hard left and was growing horizontally for seven or eight feet before turning vertical again in the manner that we’re accustomed to when we think of trees.
“What happened to it?” Julie asked, and then pointed to the place where it made its turn, revealing an open and tangled bit of bark. “It got sick or hurt,” she said.
“Isn’t it interesting how the tree can defy gravity like that and then grow tall again?” I asked. Again, she pointed something out high above the bent trunk. “It has a helper,” she said, showing me an adjacent tree supporting the unique growth pattern.
The bent tree wasn’t alone.
Fred Rogers, as in Mister Rogers, said, “When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say, ‘Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.’”
It’s not just trees that help — it’s people, too. Sometimes we need help to see it.
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So many headlines suggest we’re living in dark times. People furrow their brows. They post their worries on social media. They doom scroll. There’s war. Fires. Billionaires who care more about bra tops and space than the hungry. Hostages and orphaned children in the Middle East. Bombs going off everywhere in the form of explosives, divorces, and cancer diagnoses by the dozens.
There is a lot of darkness. And yet the clocks sprang forward this week and there was more light in the evening than there was before. Spring will come again. It’s inevitable. The universe seeks balance. If there’s more darkness around us, it must be commensurate with light. Is it possible that we’re looking in the wrong places? That we are not shrouded in complete darkness, but that we have our backs to the sun?
Is it possible that we’re looking in the wrong places? That we are not shrouded in complete darkness, but that we have our backs to the sun?
Yes, there is scary stuff, but there are helpers. So many helpers. Look for the helpers.
As my best friend lies in bed with a 4” opening in her back — a mass no longer impinging her nerves, but still days of unknown in front of her as she awaits biopsy results, friends bring over meals with care.
They consider the tiny details. Not just a pot of chili. But a bag of shredded cheese to sprinkle on top. A perfectly ripe avocado to slice. A half loaf of fresh-baked sourdough bread and warm-from-the-oven cookies with melted chocolate and fiber. My friend gets up and sits at the table for dinner. We light candles. Her husband is on her right — her right-hand man. Their 11-year-old daughter slathers butter on bread.
“Sarah makes the best bread,” she exclaims. She discusses wanting to bake. Whether it’s hard or easy to do. She tells us jokes about giraffes in the refrigerator and bricks falling from planes.
And in that moment — we’ve been helped into having a normal night. Like the tree, we are in the horizontal space between where it was hurt and where it grew tall again.
Michelle Fiordaliso, MSW is a writer, filmmaker, and executive coach. Her work has been published in The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, Ms., and more. Her latest book “Rejected: Essays on Belonging” can be purchased here.
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