Dignity and Humility

The other day I was talking with June and told her how I paid to have the oil changed in my car. How it was to only cost so much and ended up costing me a lot more. She said I should have asked Superman to do it. I tried to explain how difficult it is for me to ask the men folk in the family for help, as it is very humbling, and because I don't want to become a pathetic widow who expects others to do for me. I don't want family getting caller ID on their phones so as to avoid my calls.

I don't know why it is so hard for me to ask for help. I have been so use to Dale always doing those things, that it seems wrong in a way to have some other man do it. Dale taught me a lot of things. Whenever we had a project around the house, he often had me help him, other tasks he just did, because that's what husbands do. But there are some things that I can't do, that require a man. That's why Superman has been enclosing part of my carport to make a shed for storage for me. I don't know how frame walls. I needed his help. Yet, there are other things I could use a mans help with, but it is just so hard to ask. I don't like asking. I don't want to be a burden. I'd like to be able to do it myself, yet that isn't always the way it can be.

This week I started working the floor at the Long Care facility where I have been training. It didn't take long for me to feel for these people who can't do for themselves. They are dependent for so many things, some for all their care. There are those who have to have someone move them from their bed to the wheelchair. I feed a man everyday for two of his meals. I have to take two residents to the restroom and tend to their personal hygiene as they can't. Today one of my ladies had a couple of accidents, very unpleasant ones. She is totally dependent on me and others. She is also very modest. As I and another aid were cleaning her up, she was in tears as to the indignity of it all. I kept apologizing to her to try to ease her tears. I later told the aid who helped I hoped I would never find myself in that position.

I don't know what the moral to my story is except that, sometimes we need others to help us,
because we just can't do it on our own. That is why God gave to us people to love and care for us. I guess we have to learn to ask for that help, even if it humbles us. When that help is rendered, I hope that we will do it with all the dignity we can muster for the sake of the other person.

Dignity. A word I have learned in a new and humbling way.