so you don’t know when
“But I don’t know when she’ll wake up,” Riley says, gulping back her tears even as they glisten.
“I know,” I say, a hand on her shoulder, thinking how hard it is to persevere, not knowing when. “But she doesn’t have to get up at any certain time; she doesn’t like to in the Summer.” I have my own list of “but I don’t know whens,” building in frustration from when will the daily rains stop to when can I hug a friend again without thinking about it to when will COVID-19 exist only as history, and sometimes the waiting without knowing feels like learning to run all over again, my dad jogging beside me, pushing me ahead a few feet more and a few feet more and me blind to the end of pressing on. Sometimes I feel frustration over waiting and not knowing for how long, sometimes despair, depending on the significance of the need represented by my longing.
“I don’t know why it makes me so upset, but I don’t like feeling this way,” Riley says, her voice breaking, her confession raw, sodden with honest frustration. No, no one does, I’m thinking, squeezing her shoulder. Riley likes to know when things happen–when they have and when they will, even if she has no business knowing; anyone who loves her understands this. In fact, so foundational to Riley’s character is this obsession with knowing when that Kevin and I think of her as we read the disciples’ question before Christ ascends—“Lord, are you going to restore the kingdom now?”–and as we read His answer–“It isn’t for you to know the times God has set (Acts 1:6,7).” As a disciple, that would not have been Riley’s favorite Jesus moment. She routinely feels frustrated that some of us pay less attention to times, that we live more unstructured lives; she cries when we counsel her to let it go. Waiting feels most difficult for all of us if there’s no boundary for how long we must wait.
“Meanwhile the moment we get tired in the waiting, God’s Spirit is right alongside helping us along,” Eugene Peterson wrote in his paraphrase of Romans 8 (The Message, Romans 8:26). I think of that passage now, and Peterson’s phrasing in context: “…waiting does not diminish us….we are enlarged in the waiting…the longer we wait, the larger we become, and the more joyful our expectancy (The Message, Romans 8:22-25).” I like the perspective that anticipation builds us, or it can, if the birth pangs we experience really reveal a yearning for eternal realities yet to be born in us. I’ve heard it said that all waiting really calls us to wait for Christ; that all unknowns really call us to faith.
“I know it bothers you,” I say, trying to encourage Riley to feel her feelings while at the same time wishing she’d not give Zoe’s schedule-less waking so much power to cause her stress. Her struggle over this feels silly to me, until I remember the last time I selfishly–and yes, ridiculously–perseverated on the fact that someone else’s plans and choices were beyond my control. This conversation, the admission, is good for Riley, even if the reasons for it aren’t ideal. I should know; I’ve spent a lifetime trying to be less vulnerable. How many times have I felt exactly as she does now without possessing the same courage to admit it out loud?
“But you don’t have to be concerned over what time Zoe chooses to get up in the morning,” I continue, thinking we have too many real burdens to take up unnecessary ones. Don’t worry about tomorrow, Jesus taught, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own (Matthew 6:34).
“If you don’t like how it makes you feel,” I tell her, “try to let it go.” I say this expecting the tears that now come tumbling down her cheeks; sometimes surrendering to our lack of control feels like the highest hurdle in waiting.
Of course, for Riley, letting go of this obsessive attention to when-in-the-world-will-my-sister-get-out-of-bed will very likely not happen so easily as I can check the weather and turn on some lamps. Autism makes her obsessions as compelling as pain and just as distracting. But then, the degree to which we wait well without a definitive when is contextual for all of us. Maybe it’s a moderate thing for me to wait to hug my friends and an extremely painful challenge for a person who lives alone. I don’t know if letting go of this is as easy as a simple choice for Riley; she may have no real ability to loosen her own grip. I’ve heard her in the hallway, while, tucked away, I fold clothes or write or talk to Kevin, and she checks every few minutes to see if Zoe’s door has opened. I’ve heard her say repeatedly, “Nope, she’s not awake yet;” I’ve heard the strain in her voice, the burdensome weight of not knowing. So I can counsel her now, but I know I must do so with compassion, with the understanding that her experience and mine are not the same.
“Mmmhmm,” she says, as I slide my arms around her shoulders, as she turns, letting the little girl inside place her head against my chest. I pat her back now, rub my hand in circles that same way my mama did and her mama too, and all the while I’m thinking: Right now, we’re all waiting like never before, some of us so keyed-up with it we’re beating against the things hemming us in. We feel frustrated with the situation and each other. And what can we do now, without the whens we long to know, except listen, except encourage, except have compassion for one another? Because one thing seems certain: We wait better together.
