24 Sep Love Trades Hands
A few weeks ago, I had knee surgery. I expected a few uncomfortable days and a fairly quick return to normal. Instead, I woke up to a more complicated repair and four weeks without putting weight on my left leg.
My mom cuts jasmine from her yard and leaves the stems in a glass pitcher beside my bed, their sweetness filling the room. At the end of the bed, my girls carefully work socks over my feet. A text to my dad about an upcoming appointment comes back, “Dad’s Uber service will be there, xoxo.” My husband brings me ice cream with a little spoon, the container wrapped in a cloth so my hands don’t get cold.
A man halfway through a sandwich sees me coming on crutches, gets up and hurries to the door, then waits there while I slowly make my way toward him. In a waiting room, a woman and I trade favorite television shows. Before she leaves, she writes one of hers on an orange sticky note so I won’t forget.
For now, so much of my life is in other people’s hands. I prefer to being on the other side of these gestures. My instinct is to hurry back there, to the side where I know what to do.
But love moves. It trades hands.
We spend our lives passing it back and forth. Who needs whom changes by the year, the day, sometimes the hour. I know which side of that exchange comes more easily to me.
Maybe being loved and cared for asks something of us, too. To make room for another person’s tenderness and not hurry it away.