I‘ve always envied people who know instinctively how to give comfort when others are in distress. I don’t mean those who offer kind words or a soft shoulder — which is lovely — but those who simply march in and take measures to ease life for someone who is suffering.
I am talking here about the person who, when a woman lost her husband, drove to the widow’s house with a bag of groceries and restocked her fridge. I am thinking of the friend who, when a man lost his wife, went straight to his apartment to field phone calls. And I’m thinking of another woman, who, when a neighbor’s child fell seriously ill, organized a round-robin carpool so that the family’s other children could get to school without the parents having to leave the sick child’s bedside.
What these good Samaritans have in common is that none of them asked permission to interfere. None of them “checked in” with the anguished party “to see if you need anything,” or sent an e-mail with an offer to “help wherever I can, just let me know.” They saw a need and did something about it.
I’ve envied this because I thought I could never do it. Constrained by a morbid fear of intruding, I’d instead write or call with an offer to help. Unsurprisingly, the afflicted person would usually say, “No, no, it’s OK.”
This past week, I learned what it is to be in need, and to have it filled by a generous person who didn’t bother to ask but who simply acted.
It was early evening, and the house was in chaos. My husband was out of town, the 9-year-old and I had spent the previous two nights at Suburban Hospital (the first because she’d broken both arms; the second when her fingers became frighteningly swollen), and I hadn’t yet managed to organize supper.
Suddenly, a vaguely familiar car pulled into the driveway and out stepped a friend and her daughter. They had brought us dinner: Beef stew! Green beans! Clementines! Chocolate cake!
“I thought perhaps you might need a break,” said my benefactress, with a small smile. Reader, I almost wept. If she had asked if we needed help, I would have said, as people do, “No, no, it’s OK.”
But it wasn’t OK, and she didn’t ask, and her act of kindness spread over us like a warm, cosy blanket. It felt so good to be cared for! So good, indeed, that I suddenly realized that the compunctions that had kept me from doing the same for others mattered not a bit compared to the chance to give succor.
The next day, emboldened, I brought a plate of cookies to a woman whose family has lately been in terrible straits. As she came to the door and saw what was in my hands, her face crumpled.
“Oh, no!” I thought desperately, “This was a bad mistake. I’m intruding!”
How wrong I was. A moment later she’d thrown her arms around me, and was sobbing: “When I saw you, I thought, Here is someone who cares about us!”
Sometimes it really is better to act, than to ask.
Meghan Cox Gurdon’s column appears on Sunday and Thursday. She can be contacted at [email protected].
