even when you’re not okay
In the afternoon, we walk, and Riley’s normal sunshine has turned to storm, silent, brooding thick like the blanketing clouds of winter. I have stopped glancing toward her, because when I do, she glances away; and I’ve stopped asking, because my questions make her dissolve into embarrassed grief. Unintentionally, I’ve taught her that sadness has to have a reason, that it can’t sometimes just be the way we feel.
Moments ago, she grasped for why because I asked, mentioning all the usual things that make us all melancholy—loneliness, the anticipation of unmet expectations. In her own way, she explained that today she can’t enjoy what is for worrying over what might never be. Today, like all of us sometimes, she plans in advance for pain. And somehow, I’ve taught her to wonder if I’m displeased with her because she’s unhappy. I started our walk overwhelmed by my work; it’s probably that she sees in the burdened way I move my limbs, and I’m thinking now that’s not really ever the best place from which to approach another person’s vulnerability.
We like to think of vulnerability as something we show or not, as transparency, Tish Harrison Warren points out in her book Prayer in the Night, instead of recognizing vulnerability as weakness inherent to humanity (14-15). Our vulnerability is, but sometimes we hide from the truth. We walk free from prisons of perfectionism when we own our inadequacy.
The sky blushes with dusk light–tender hints of coral, palest gold; merely a glow, like a whisper of glory. I am drawn to gentleness, to God, to the obvious restraint of vast, incomprehensible power, which makes this my favorite kind of sky. In the absence of Riley’s usual laughter over her shadow (“My shadow makes me laugh so much,” she often says to me, mid-giggle.) and her usual observations about the number of cars driving past us on the road (“This is one of the busiest roads on our route, Mom.”), I begin to pray, sneaking a glance every so often to see that soft, pristine sky light glowing on Riley’s round cheeks. I ask God, as I often do, to show me how to love her, because living a life of love really comes down to a plea for transformation.
Pressed for why and troubled by feelings she doesn’t completely understand, Riley had begun at first to assign her sadness to me. If I had texted Josh’s mom, my friend, as I had planned to do this morning, she could feel secure about her plans to see Josh this weekend. Josh is her best friend, she reminded me. She’s lonely without him. I didn’t immediately recognize this comment for what it was; I tried to reason with her; I tried to tell her that my texting or not wouldn’t change the plans at all. I’d been too busy cooking to send the message, and wasn’t that work important too? I responded as though it were about me when it wasn’t about me at all.
Then, she had blamed her circumstances–the weather, her clothes. “I don’t like it when the wind blows my hood up,” she’d said, her voice quavering. I misunderstood this too; I still believed she needed me to fix it.
“But you don’t want your hood on your head?” I asked absurdly, reaching to catch the offender with my fingers.
“No, I don’t like it on my head.” She sounded suddenly irritated with her jacket, with me for not understanding the problem.
“But it’s cold.” I stuffed the hood down, even though the whole situation felt increasingly more ridiculous to me.
“It’s sooo cold.” She echoed me, shivering in her jacket, which clearly—at least to me–wasn’t enough. Tears sprang to her eyes. She was uncomfortable, that must be why.
Still not seeing past my own woundedness to hers, I told Riley that next time she should wear more clothes. “When it’s cold like this, you really should wear a hat, gloves, maybe even a sweatshirt.” Without even realizing it, I suggested she would not be sad if she had done something different.
I offered to turn back, to cut our walk short because of her discomfort, but Riley, just like me, struggles to offer herself the grace she’s already been given. She’s unkind to no one, except maybe herself.
“No, I want to finish the walk,” she said at last, and then she fell silent.
While I pray now, the trees reach their dark, stark limbs toward that stunning Winter sky, and God reminds me about the lesson of Job: Suffering people don’t need interrogations. They need presence. They need acknowledgement. They need the testimony of our quietly breathing bodies nearby, saying, I will love you even when you’re not okay.
For a moment, I inhale grace, the good news that God has done absolutely everything necessary to save us, and I exhale thanks. We keep walking, Riley and I, and I take care to stay by her side, even though sometimes her steps slow. I let my hand rest on her back, so she can feel me with her, so her hood won’t fly up. From time to time, I feel her looking at me, reading my expression, and I smile, just a hint, trying to let my face say everything that’s already true, everything I want for her.
The Lord bless you
Numbers 6:24-26
and keep you;
the Lord make his face shine on you
and be gracious to you;
the Lord turn his face toward you
and give you peace.
I glance her way now, just quickly, and I see it again, the Light shining on her cheeks.
