Reason for Living #14: Care That Cannot Be Repaid

Once my son got an aide, I was no longer the only person who could help my son get through the day,

Today’s guest essayist on REASONS FOR LIVING with Esmé Weijun Wang is

Nebula Notebook

(Heidi Fiedler). The Reasons for Living newsletters are free to read and are not paywalled, if you’d like to subscribe to get two bursts of light in your inbox per month; if you pay $7/month or $70/year, you’ll also receive access to the Library, which contains creativity resources, and two paywalled personal essays by me per month.

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Many days caring for my family feels impossibly heavy, as though I’m on a seesaw, sliding down, down, down into a muddy puddle of other people’s needs. Everything from “Feed me” to “Fix this” adds to the weight, until there’s no way I can balance the seesaw, and suddenly I need to be cared for too. But every so often, someone lifts the other side of the seesaw, and I can breathe a little easier.

In April, my son celebrated his eighth birthday. Maybe the best birthday of all. You’re old enough to anticipate all the fun. Everyone is nice to you. It’s still fun to be the center of attention. This was his first birthday on a school day, too, so he got to do a silly dance with his class and wear a crown all day.

The aides who have supported him over the last few years stopped by to wish him happy birthday, and they paused to take a picture that made me gasp. The aides are all beaming with pride. The picture captures a rare moment together. And beyond celebrating turning eight, the moment gives everyone a chance to reflect on how much progress our son has made at school.

It’s the aides that make it possible for him to not just go to school, but enjoy it and be successful. They see through all the challenges and genuinely adore our son. They stop by the house when he’s sick, invite us to family parties, and text us pictures. They get to know our son and spend hours talking with him about everything from his favorite things to big news like the new playground that’s going in. They pour their time and attention into helping him succeed. The care they provide has changed his life.

It’s changed mine too. Once my son got an aide, I was no longer the only person who could help my son get through the day. The aides lifted the other end of the seesaw and said, “Between the hours of 9 and 3, we’ve got this.”

I am so relieved and grateful that it’s hard to know how to respond. Of course, I am constantly thanking them, quietly in my heart and aloud. But there’s no way I can repay them. I’ve tried to think of the perfect gift. Maybe some cheery can-do bracelets or a book that says, “You are changing our lives in ways that will ripple across time and space and influence future generations?” Nothing feels quite right when they deserve mansions and massages. At the very least, I wish the rest of the world could appreciate how amazing they are.

The truth is there’s no way to repay the care they provide.

Some people come into our lives and give much more than they take. Our son’s surgeon. The high school teacher who helped me figure out whether to become an actress or not. The friend who believes in my writing more than I do. Their care and attention cannot be repaid.

In our capitalist economy, we are taught to be hyper-independent and treat our relationships as ledgers. We feel pressured to repay what cannot be repaid. Instead of striving to do the impossible, I try to honor our interdependence and believe I might be of service to someone else in some other way. I might not know when or how I will be of service, but there’s beauty and mystery in the not knowing.

This kind of care is essential, but in no way basic. It is highly personal and often temporary, with the sacred and mundane swirled into something hard to identify. These relationships are not reciprocal. They are built on imbalanced equations. But zoom out beyond a single relationship, and the equations get blurrier. They loop and connect in surprising ways that only make sense on large time scales. This is generous caregiving, and I think it might be one of the most precious experiences that humans can have.

Heidi Fiedler is a children’s book writer, editor, and creative coach. She writes about creativity and motherhood for sites like Hello Gloria and Literary Mama, as well her own Substack, Nebula Notebook, where she’s sharing all the nitty gritty details that go into self-publishing her new book Quickening: The Art of Being a Creative Mother. You can learn more about her work and offerings at helloheidifiedler.com.

10% of the proceeds from this edition will be donated to 826 Boston. Donate here: Donate.

"Untitled," 1951, by W. Eugene Smith

The Kindness of Others

by Cathy Song

The kindness of others
is all they ever wanted,
the laughter of neighbors
prospering in the blue light of summer.

Those of the small sputtering flame
and the sudden white sprung hair,
who feed off envy and grow old quickly,
desire largesse.

The role of poor relation
evokes a lack
they are not apt to admit,
or unbearable pity.

They prefer to penetrate the giver’s
effortless knack of giving
they perceive as vitality,
a pulsating entity

that rewards the kindness of others
tenfold.
This they have witnessed.
This they have tabulated relentlessly.

The generosity of others
whose spirits, like their long-legged
children blossoming into a progeny
of orchards and fields, flourish.

Those who have never known kindness
drag into the privacy of their smallness
the baskets of fruit
appearing year after year on their porches,

to be picked apart
in the hushed posture of thieves.
They peel skin, probe flesh
the color of honey

as if the seeds will yield something
other than a glimmer of sweet air
rising from the roots of trees
and licorice-laced, half-opened leaves.

Those of the small flame,
who feed off envy and grow old quickly,
live out their lives
hungry,

glaring at themselves across the table,
wife of the cruel mouth,
husband of the thin broth
trickling like spittle.

Who has cared for you? Who continues to care for you now?

Who do you care for? Who have you cared for in the past?

What does caring mean to you?

Update: If you email submissions@esmewang.com with your answers to these Journal Promps, they may appear in a future editiom.

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…and ONE LAST THING. Again: The Reasons for Living newsletters are free to read and are not paywalled, if you’d like to subscribe to get two bursts of light in your inbox per month; if you pay $7/month or $70/year, you’ll also receive access to the Library, which contains creativity resources, and two paywalled personal essays by me per month. All the love—