Who Deserves a Meal Train?
Surely I’m not the only one ….
My family has been the beneficiary of more meals than I can count. For months on end in 2007 and 08, then again in 2009 and 10. And again now, people are dropping our packages off at FedEx and picking up bananas and wine at the grocery store and showing up on snowy Sunday nights to walk our two dogs around the block. And I’m not totally sure we deserve it.
No, “deserve” is not the right word. Or the right sentiment. It’s more about who else deserves it too. We’re dealing with big stuff, don’t get me wrong. Two weeks ago, my husband gave our 15-year old son a kidney, an after-effect of the cancer he’d had as a baby and again as a toddler (the first two times we benefited from meal deliveries).
I will not deny that this transplant has been a very big deal, for all of us. Two members of one household having major abdominal surgeries, both hospitalized at the same time. Plus all the after-care, labs and appointments, meds and side effects, with only one driver in the house. When doctors determined that my husband’s kidney was the best match for Austin, we were all pretty thrilled. But it also meant that I gained an extra patient and lost my trusty helper all in one fell swoop.
So people stepped in and stepped up. Our friends and neighbors and family and coworkers. Our community, of which we are active members, behaved exactly the way a community should. We’re getting multiple meals each week. All according to varied — and complicated — dietary restrictions. Our dogs are being walked by strangers (to them) at least once and sometimes twice every day.
It is truly lovely to be on the receiving end of so much generosity. We deeply appreciate it and have no intention of turning it away (my kids are thrilled withthe extra effort put into their meals — my older son said, “People are pulling out ALL the stops!”).
But I can’t help but wonder about all the other people who need meals delivered. Who need someone to text them every time they run to Target or Trader Joe’s and ask, “Anything you need? I’m going anyway and am happy to drop off.”
The parent of young kids whose spouse travels for work, juggling the feeding, caring for, getting places, putting to sleep, everything of parenting all on their own. Or the single parent in the same boat, who doesn’t even have a return date to look forward to.
The mom of a teenager suffering from anxiety and depression who can’t just go on Facebook and say, “Hey, things are rough over here with all our psychiatric appointments. Oh, and the stress. Can someone drop off some groceries?” because it’s not really her story to tell.
The parent of a child with a special need that will never go away, not like a time-constrained cancer protocol my family has followed, with an end date marked with stars on the calendar. Are people really going to want to drop off meals for … ever?
And what about all the illnesses that are invisible, or of which the sufferer feels embarrassed or ashamed, those that exist in the mind and that don’t generate the outpouring of sympathy that “cancer” or “kidney transplant” automatically generate? Those people could use dinner every now and again.
My family’s suffering has always been time-constrained: get through this hard thing, this hard month or hard three months or hard six months, and then get a break. So many people never get a break.
And my family’s suffering has always been super shareable. Nothing makes people want to jump up and help more than a childhood cancer diagnosis. Or a sweet rambunctious teenager needing a new kidney. But for so may I know, their struggles are more tenuous and ambiguous. And much more private, for so many reasons. They have good days and bad days and they’re lucky when the former outweigh the latter. There’s isn’t an easing up or one good test result to await or even an end goal … it’s just life. Every day, one after another, some filled with triumphs and some filled with tragedies but just … there, existing, in the hard place.
Muddling along and needing people to leave meals on your front porch. And walk your dogs when it’s snowing.
Because I am surely not the only one who deserves this.
