I am grateful for my sister. She took most of the week off from work to come take care of me, even though I didn’t think I needed taking care. I didn’t realize how nice it was to have someone take care of our meals, clean up around the house, do my laundry, help get medications ready to go for infusion, water the plants, get the mail, make our house smell like someone lives here with her cooking, feed the cats, clean the litter boxes, get things I need from upstairs, inject happiness in the air of my depressed state of mind, do the dishes, randomly think of a snack to bring to me mid-day, pick up things I drop, move rugs out of the way that could be hazardous, check on AirBnb’s, keep Sam company, bring breakfast to me as soon as I am alert and ready for the day, and on and on and on and on.

You don’t need a plan; you just need to be present. – Bob Goff in Love Does

When I came home from the hospital, I really didn’t have any idea how difficult it was going to be to exist. We can take care of ourselves. Sam is taking a harvest break from chemo, so he feels pretty good. We got this.

But within the first 30 minutes of being home, we both began to realize how difficult this might be when he had to unload the entire truck by himself and lift me up onto the porch by himself, only to come inside and have to put everything away and make the bed to get me into it and then figure out what was next to make the house run again. Staying on top of the infusions three times a day, helping me in the bathroom to get cleaned up and dressed, and doing all that my sister is now doing was just a lot for him – he has his own battle to fight.

We have a hard time asking for help that we don’t realize we need until we need it. My sister took the initiative and dropped her schedule to drive five hours to be whatever we need before we knew we needed. She asked but knew we would turn her down. So she did what we try to do but fail at quite often.

As I write this, I do not have a blanket over me, and I am a little cold. The cats are on my covers, and they are so adorable, I hate to disturb them. Besides, the laptop is warm, so it is okay. And then, my sister appears with a cup of hot tea and a homemade cookie from her husband.

Simply put, love does. – Bob Goff in Love Does

She didn’t expect for us to come up with a list of things we needed help with, because she knew we were overwhelmed already.

She didn’t wait to be asked, because she knew we wouldn’t.

She just DID.