The Small Things That Carry Love, Episode 321
When any of us - or all of us - face a tectonic shift in our lives, through a birth or a death, a change in circumstances, or a calamity in the world, it can be hard to know how to respond. We easily overcomplicate, or turn away because we don’t know what to do.
But what if the most necessary response in difficult times - and the one that cultivates the best in us - was the simplest… taking care of one another through the simple, practical, almost-invisible small things?
This week's Turning Towards Life is hosted, as always, by Lizzie Winn and Justin Wise of Thirdspace.
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Here’s our source for this week:
The small things that carry love
When I gave birth for the first time,
My daughter washing up on the shores of my world
With such newness and raw need
And so many questions swimming in her eyes,
I remember not knowing which way was up. Or who I was or what anything was.
I felt like I needed something huge,
Some great pair of hands to scoop me up and help me find a way to be in this new world I had been ushered into so slowly and suddenly. I needed a plan for my whole life. How to keep her safe, how to live, how to be this new version of myself that didn’t fit yet.
And here’s what I remember.
I remember my mum changing the bin for me and folding a pile of laundry.
I remember my husband bringing me dark chocolate and a cup of tea and letting me sleep for half an hour.
I remember these small things because these are the things that mattered most while the tectonic plates shifted inside me.
Small, practical, kind things that don’t require any words or thinking or explaining or responding to.
The small things that whisper ‘you’re okay, the world is still slow and gentle and made of daily tasks; it will wait for you.’
And so now, when I find myself on the other end of
another’s great crossing of some invisible line - the
death of someone or the birth, or any slow, sudden
change that can come in any number of ways,
I have learned to trust that the love I feel and the
goodness I want to express
will best flow towards this one I love
Through the simple, practical, almost-invisible
small
things.
Hollie Holden
Photo by rajat sarki on Unsplash