Lean on Me...Just Not Constantly, Please

Let me say it loud, if not actually proud:  I am averse to discomfort, whether in the form of hardship or controversy.

Such an admission hardly qualifies as waving my freak flag, I know.  But because of this particular aversion,  I spend a fair amount of my waking hours walking the proverbial fence in the fervent hope of not stepping in it.  Like a smarmy deejay,  I'll spin just about anything, simply to avoid the cockleburs of being human.

Such "lofty" goals, however, seldom do squat for me when members of my own tribe are suffering.

Unfortunately,  my tribe has been taking some hits of late.  And, between you and weasel-faced me, frankly, I'm starting to feel a bit worthless and worn out by all these challenges.

What to do for a peep with a problematic prognosis, then?  A friend or family member facing a funeral of someone far too young?  How to handle the heartbreak of someone I love whose beloved sister or grandparents have all too soon left their lives?

Apparently, I have great hope in the healing powers of a HyVee gift card.

I also lean heavily on the gifts of others, relieved by the realization that other people are picking up the pieces and tending to the tough stuff much better than I am.  This parasitic propensity of mine goes surprisingly far in supporting my "HyVee Answers All Things" theory.

Underneath my cowardliness, though, I do possess a willingness to name and lament the elephant in the room.  Not that such a thing comes naturally or comfortably to me.  But, having received and appreciated such acknowledgment from others while I was walking through my own burr-riddled prairies of the past, I know that there is a surprising value in naming things and being there, even without a casserole or quilt in hand.

At the end of the day, then, I do show up.  And that's something, I suppose.  Something, fortunately, that does not have to be everything, thanks to all the other good folks, the ones whose gifts are more practical, more consistent, more delicious.  Together, we do alright in tending to the tribe, a thought that I find oddly reassuring.