Asking for Help is Haaard!
Good karma for all!
I am terrible at asking for help. I used to think it’s because I was raised by two Brits — in particular two Brits who grew up in London during the war with bombs routinely falling all around them but who, like so many others, maintained their stiff upper lips. But in recent years, having met countless people who are also terrible at asking for help, I’ve come to believe it’s the human condition.
Three weeks ago, I flew to Baltimore for medical treatments.1 It didn’t occur to me to ask for help with this trip until my friend Kate volunteered to go. The treatment center I would be visiting was an hour outside of Baltimore in a historic town called Frederick. Kate knew, amongst other things, I was afraid the treatment would agitate the vertigo, which makes driving extra tricky. She also thought the companionship would be good for my overall health.
I was shocked by Kate’s kind offer. For nearly three decades, I have carried most of the logistics of my health on my own. I live alone with a limited budget; friends and family, who love me very much, don’t live super close and have their own complex lives. As those with chronic health challenges know, in these sorts of circumstances it’s simply not possible to receive the amount of care that you need. So you become incredibly skilled at pushing through pretty much everything. Not a bad trait to have, I’m grateful for how much I’ve managed, but from it has grown the hardcore belief that when it comes to addressing my healthcare there is only me.
Kate offered a new and exciting perspective.
Unfortunately, the timing of my treatments ended up being the week before Christmas and Kate has two children so joining me wasn’t possible. But she had planted the lovely notion of having someone by my side, and I couldn’t shake it.
I studied Tibetan Buddhism for nearly three decades with Gelek Rimpoche and he joyfully and emphatically stated time and again that we must accept another’s generosity otherwise we are interfering with their ability to generate good karma. At the time I was young and healthy with a rich community of friends and making great money so I wasn’t in need of help in the ways that were yet to come. Yet this admonishment stayed with me. And I have done my best to live by it, even when doing so stirs up all sorts of emotions.
Of course, asking someone for help isn’t the same as them offering it — but it does open the door for them to say yes and launch their good karma roll. Plus, if you’re someone who always takes care of everything on their own — and doesn’t let on how hard much of it is (why do we do this??) — then even those closest to you might not realize how much you need help. Or at least this is what I told myself when I reached out to one of my English cousins, Lorna, who lives in New York City and asked if she might join me. Without hesitation she said yes.
Not only did Lorna say yes, it was a big, joyful yes! I was full of dread and overwhelm about this trip. I was going to an unfamiliar place, staying in a bleak looking hotel for three nights without Delilah and Rudy, eating all my meals alone, with the murky goal of attempting to get work done in-between appointments. Plus, I would need to drive myself to and from the airport as well as to and from appointments when, as noted, any sort of treatment, not just this one, often sends me backwards (with the hope I then surge forward!). Additionally, traveling for care puts extra pressure on the treatments: the time, the money, the planning — the treatments had to work!
But suddenly, with Lorna involved, everything felt lighter. I booked an Airbnb for the two of us with a kitchen and a cozy sitting room and two bedrooms. I reached out to the host sharing I had brain injury which had left me sensitive to sound, was it quiet? She assured me it was at the end of an alley and was very quiet. “It looks so cozy,” Lorna and I proclaimed. “It will be the perfect place to recover and heal.” Lorna figured out the car. And off we went.
Lorna took the train in whilst I flew. We met at the airport and hopped on a shuttle to our car. Lorna signed on as the sole driver. “I’m here to take care of you,” she told me with a smile. We loaded our luggage in the trunk and headed, in the dark and the pounding rain, to the grocery store. Neither of us (one a current and one an ex-New Yorker) wanted to leave our laptops in the car, so we plopped our two carrier bags into a shopping cart and pushed them through the store piling food around them. Back on the highway, we got lost a few times but finally made it to our place, which was anything but quiet (more on that in a moment), and ate a lovely dinner. The entire time, from the moment we met, until we bade one another good night, we talked and laughed and talked and laughed.
Why am I sharing these seemingly inconsequential moments? Because they were beautiful. From Monday through to Thursday, Lorna had promised herself to me. And here she was, already tending to me. I know I would have managed to do all these things, I often astound myself with what I pull off when I don’t ever feel well, but I didn’t need to. My job was to accept her generosity.
The next few days unfurled with grace and pleasure and more endless chatting. The treatments were an hour and a half each morning and we had the rest of the day to ourselves. Frederick is beautiful. The homes are largely Colonial, clean, simple, charming. The downtown shopping area is thriving; rows of bustling stores with mountains of enticing wares. It reminded me of the way much of America was before internet shopping became so easy. We wandered the streets. Ate lunches at delicious tucked away restaurants. Walked along the river for miles. Celebrated Lorna closing on a house in England. Celebrated what would have been my mother’s ninety-seventh birthday. And talked and talked and talked. Amidst the stress and worry I was feeling, we were having fun.
But the stress was real. Our apartment didn’t turn out to be quiet, at all. It was heated by mini-splits which clanked and wheezed. And whilst, yes, it was indeed at the end an alley, right across the street was a massive dairy facility and the tankers rolled in between one and four in the morning and filled up, which sounded a lot like they were drilling for oil. I was exhausted. (Lorna slept with EarPods in and listened to podcasts and wondrously slept through it!) I was overwhelmed by the amount of information I was receiving about my health at each appointment. I’m physically and emotionally sensitive to bodywork, and this was stirring up both.
I’m desperate to regain my health and like so many who are likewise desperate, my hopes were high — and my fears of being stuck like this forever were too.
During the first appointment, Lorna went to a coffee shop. When I joined her in the car, Positive Acorn was waiting for me. Soft and cute as a button, he held a note that said: I may be a tiny corn, but I believe in you. You are making progress!
Reader, I burst out crying. Or at least my version of crying. Apparently, people who’ve been in survival mode for a while can lose their ability to cry. This tiny corn, whom I promptly named Frederick, shone brightly on my hopes, letting me know they were safe to have. Letting me know, I wasn’t alone.
Somehow between the car and our place, Frederick lost an eye. Lorna and I searched amongst the leaves and gravel, along the pavement, and the deck outside our door; we tore apart the car: nothing. So now he is One-Eyed Frederick and, if possible, I love him more than ever. He’s been on some journeys, too.
At night, Lorna roasted deep dishes of vegetables and eased pesto sauce over ravioli. We ate snuggled on the (not super comfortable) couch, watching back-to-back rom-coms. For dessert, I’d brought fruitcake from home (something Lorna and I both adore!) that another of our cousins gifts me every year. Breakfasts, Lorna fried eggs whilst I did my best to figure out the super fancy toaster oven and we ate at the beautiful wood counter propped in (not very comfortable) stools with the sun pouring over us.
Here, too, we shared what we loved about our lives, what we wanted to change, what we loved about each other. We talked about books and movies and money and desire and travel and bodies and animals and how to be kind to ourselves and to those we love. We sorted through what it takes to survive in this world and if we thought we could make it, if we thought we could thrive. We made plans for our futures and dissected our pasts, though not much, and shared our mutual dislikes for bullies.
The place hadn’t turned out to be the cozy nest we’d hoped for. It had been clean and safe, but loud and uncomfortable. Nothing homey about it. But we had made it our home for those four days. We had made it what we needed it to be.
On the final day, after my last treatment, we drove into Baltimore and had lunch at what Yelp reviewers had described as the best vegetarian restaurant in Baltimore. The waiter was kind and gentle; the food was mediocre, at best. And we were happy there, too, helping each other sort out problems with friends and landlords and anything we hadn’t yet gotten to.
And then Lorna drove us to the airport to drop off the car. And we said a teary goodbye on the shuttle bus and both ended up back at our separate homes around the same time.
As I write this, I think how different that trip would have been without Lorna. It’s almost inconceivable to me. I would have most likely wandered the town a bit, then returned to my hotel room and worked on my laptop. It might have been okay. For one thing, without the dairy tankers filling up in the wee hours, I might have slept. And with all the open time, I might have managed to get some writing in.
But my heart would not have been filled to its brim. My spirit would not have been nurtured. I would never have met my tiny acorn who believes in me. And I wouldn’t have had so much fun.
Ultimately, isn’t the greatest healer love.
And although technically Lorna had been there to help me, and did help me tremendously, she also had a fantastic time! She’d been going way too hard at work and this was like a short holiday for her. She returned to New York City feeling rested and rejuvenated.
Isn’t this often the case? I help others in whatever ways I’m able and when I do so, there is almost always benefit to me, even if it’s simply that it feels good to help.
I’m not suggesting I’ve mastered this art of asking for help, or of receiving help and generosity. Far from it. But this trip was certainly a good reminder of what Rimpoche taught me all those decades ago — that generosity benefits all.
Lorna generated mountains of good karma. And I got to help her do that!
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Wishing us all a gentle, thriving, creative, healthy, abundant love-filled 2025. May kindness rain down on the planet and her animals.
xJane
If you enjoyed this post, you might also enjoy this one about getting divorced when you’re still in love:
I do plan on sharing health updates with you, should you be interested, but I have this unfortunate pattern of getting worse before I get better and this experience was no different. So I’d prefer to wait until I’m struggling a bit less.
Oh Jane, I so wish I could've gone, but now I feel like I might get some good karma for clearing the way for Lorna to go! It sound like you both had a wonderful time despite the bumps. And in true Jane form, you turned a personal experience into a beautifully written piece that speaks to so many, thereby racking up your own karma points. Fingers crossed the treatments turn out to be helpful. I love you!
Hi Jane, I love everything about this story (except that you didn’t get enough sleep). Rimpoche’s wisdom never fails. Sending you lots of love and goodness for your healing.❤️