asking for help

I got an F in trigonometry. It was my senior year in high school and the previous year I managed to get high marks in math and science and even started toying with the idea of pursuing a science focused degree. The first week of trig I was completely lost. Our teacher was a genuine mathematician--something quite different than a regular math teacher. I recall him scribbling some things on the chalk board and looking at us saying "there it is". Everyone looked at him with total attention seeming to understand everything. I sunk in my chair. I was used to simply "absorbing" information as it was presented. I usually didn't have to ask questions or study and got grades equivalent to my level of interest. Not a recipe for success but I had no awareness of that. For a while I simply hid in my own thoughts during class until my mid term report card had an F on it.

Well failing a class my senior year was unacceptable--there was NO way I was going to be late for graduation. I hired a tutor--one of my classmates and I paid her with my own money. She patiently broke the functions down for me as I struggled to focus. I passed. I graduated.

I went for an Literature degree.

Thank G-D for tutors. Something that everyone knew would help if I just bothered to reach out to one. They show up. I pay attention. Things get better.

I still struggle with asking for help.

The week since my brother's death has been an excruciating crawl.

People have been writing and calling asking to help--asking for things to do. There has been precious little to do other than a few phone calls. We go about our days and break down in the middle. I made up a bunch of chores for my family to work on to while the hours away.

I decided to go back to work. It was like being back in my trig class.

I'm not accustomed to entering a job and not "getting it" by just listening and observing. The difficulties of the last month also have hampered my ability to join the hive mind that is my new work place. I didn't know what I needed so I awkwardly asked my boss for guidance. She made herself available and just as awkwardly did her best to help (help is so much easier to give if the problem is well defined--but as all technical people know, problem definition is 95% of solution).

In the meantime entropy was at work and something I thought was on track was disintegrating. I did the things I knew how to do. I got more help. I resigned myself to wearing a pointy hat for a while and not pretending to know what I was doing.

At the end of the day, on my way out of the building, a familiar number rang my phone. I almost let it go to voice mail--I could listen to the kind message later when I could unpack my grief from its little box in private and take note that someone noticed and was sending love. I chose to answer instead.

My friend, someone I knew from my last job and a dear soul, broke his heart open into my ear. His genuine grief, his tears, his raw words cracked my little box open into sobbing. He said he just wanted to sit next to me and cry with me.  He lives 30 miles in the opposite direction but wanted to do my chores, bring my family food...anything to assuage our pain.

I've been avoiding talking. Mostly I've been avoiding explaining. Suicide doesn't make any sense and people want to ask questions--I expected a lot of having to tell people things. But I actually did need to tell someone. I needed to verbalize everything that had happened in the last month. To not use my keyboard to put a safe veil up. I was never going to call someone up and tell them any of the things that happened. No matter. That raw naked part of my psyche was making calls to whatever angelic forces exist to look for cracks in me to get that kind of help in. And they sent my friend. He got past. And the crack is a little wider and others will get in over the days and weeks too.

When I got home there was a package with a little teapot and a box of tea. There was also a lovely wooden box filled with cookies and sweets--the sorts of things you put out when you invite someone to listen to you.

I'm closer to sitting with someone but it's still very hard to contemplate. Angels and spirits keep scraping at the crack, making it a little larger--easier for light and rain to get in.