the helper
Upstairs, I fill a basket with the things Riley will need after her shower–hairbrush, deodorant, pajamas. I tap my fingers on plastic, rub them against soft fabric, ticking off items by touch. I consider the warmth of the night air, how Riley turns on the fan even when it’s cool, how particular she will be about how I have placed these things in the basket, which is silver, like a swath of moonlight.
“We have to save her from herself,” Kevin had said that morning when we discussed Riley’s lack of adequate rest, how her rituals and repetitions stretch a thing like grabbing stuff for a shower into an hour long process. Another hour will follow for the shower, another for cleaning up the bathroom, and then another hour, to make a lunch to take to school, and just so, the daylight fades, the night grows dark. Going to bed very late and then getting up very early makes Riley vulnerable for seizures, a consequence that feels inevitable to her and beyond her control. For Riley, these routines she follows feel like necessities instead of options.
We have to save her from herself.
Kevin’s words feel weighty, like something eternally true and beyond us. Not one of us can save ourselves. I think of this as I place the basket on the counter in the bathroom, as I reach for a fresh towel to fold over the holder on the bathroom wall. I always struggle deciding just how much to do for Riley, knowing that she can’t yet break free of her routines, feeling the warning of danger as the hour grows late. She needs to develop her independence, but while I gently teach her to throw off the things that cripple her, I help. I do what I can to make her path straight. I am a tiny gospel, a helper standing barefoot and tired in the bathroom with Riley’s washcloth in my hand, straightening out the bath mat.
“Oh hi, Mom,” she says, her tone bright with wonder as though my presence, even expected, strikes her as a refreshing surprise. I smile, thinking that this is how I feel about God, expecting Him to be with me, knowing He’ll be with me, and yet always freshly astonished to recognize Him there. I have a Helper too. I think of Ezekiel, how I read this morning that he couldn’t even stand up in the presence of Jesus except that the Spirit lifted him to his feet (Ezekiel 2:2), and I smile wider, because my need for the One Jesus called the Helper (John 14:26) is just that real, just that inevitable. There’s Biblical tension between my choice to obey and my desperate need for help doing so.
I reach out a hand, wiggle my fingers as Riley pulls the hair tie from her hair and all those lengths of brassy waves tumble free, and she laughs, full and rich and sparkling, dropping that bit of black elastic in my palm. On her own, there would be things to say, rhythms to snap out as she winds that band around the handle of her hairbrush. But I extend my empty hand, asking her to trust me, and yielding to me is a kind of freedom. She watches me flip the faucet on and slide my fingers through the water as it falls, testing for warmth. “Looks like Mom has me all prepared,” she says, as though announcing this fact to the world, and then she laughs again, harder still. That wild sound, so unburdened and free, washes over me, and I think maybe Riley’s joy is about more than just what I’ve done to help her along; it’s about her having me right here in the room with her, about her knowing and seeing and feeling with her own two hands that God has not left her alone.
“Truly, truly it is for your good that I am going away,” Jesus had said to his bewildered disciples. “Unless I go away, the Helper will not come to you. But if I go, I will send him to you (John 16:7).” The disciples didn’t really understand yet that God would never leave them alone, that He who had moved from above and below, from behind and before to beside now planned to live within. They didn’t know–I still don’t completely understand, that yielding to the help of the Spirit is freedom. It is so much better now than when Jesus walked here in skin and bone, because there are now no limits upon my access to God. He extends his hand, asking me to trust Him. And this is maybe where Riley’s wisdom exceeds my own, because for all my awe, sometimes I resist the help. Sometimes I refuse to rely. Sometimes in misery, I miss the joy–that wild, unburdening truth–of the Helper right here with me.
I sit a moment and gather it in, Riley’s flashing eyes, that grin, the giggles that just keeping coming, the light and easy way she waits on me, bouncing up on her toes, and I can’t help it, I start to laugh.
