What to do when people ask: How may I help you?

How may I help you?

I hear this question often these days. Well meaning people with good hearts and willing hands ask me this question. I don't know what to say in response. We are loners in our home. The idea of anyone coming in and helping creates a discontent in me. Not that our place is clean and ordered. It is our place. With rare exception we have always chosen to go out rather than have anyone in and the dementia has not changed that about us.

How may I help you?

This question requires me to think. I shrug it off and run as fast as I can peeping over my shoulder to see if I am being followed by the "how can I help you" people.

A lovely group of men came and installed an awesome ramp for us. No cost. A friend of mine saw the need, organized the people and they arrived and proceeded to build the ramp and built it professionally as well. We peeked out the blinds and followed their progress. Conversations of our gratitude inevitably led back to their gratitude for being able to help . So I stood and Robert stood a little and we watched and felt cared for and loved and cherished. With the minimum of fanfare they left one day. On to their next project is what I am thinking.
How did they help me? Obviously the ramp and paying the cost of it was a huge help but how did they help me individually.

They helped me accept help. They brought everything including the plan, the wood, nails, schedule, water, food and their own conversation. They helped me by beautifying the front of our home and by fixing the steps at the back of our place. They helped me to understand that someone saw us and got it. They got it and they knew where our journey is headed and they understood the road ahead. They helped me to feel less lonely, less alarmed at all the things that need doing. They bore our burden.

How may I help you?

Share my burden. Know me. Know my need.
Understand the journey or ask me to talk about it. Then love me and suggest a frivolous snack.

Did I mention that yummy snacks play a huge role in helping? They do. I don't know why. They are comforting and child-like and help me experience a child-like pleasure.

How may you help me?

Let me help you. Ask me to do something that will help you. It sounds odd but helping someone else is the greatest way to get outside of suffering and into relieving suffering. Keep it simple but not condescendingly so.

How may you help me?

Pray. Pray. Pray.

How may you help me?

Love your life. Live your life. Remind me that this too shall pass. Bear my burden and I will bear yours. Inside of that is a truth I do not understand. It is true. It works. But I do not understand it.