We'd planned for some time to be in Austin during SXSW last month, and of course Mike and Melissa and the girls were planning to have us stay with them-who would the Wilson's be if not fantastic hosts?
Then we got word about Doug, and immediately thought to beg off. How could the Wilson's possibly handle a house full of guests--among them a 4 month old baby girl--while handling all that was crashing in on them? And on top of it, Mike's biggest work project of the year, that same week? No way, we thought. We'll get a hotel. Something. Anything but be a burden.
But they insisted, and so we came, and what we saw still makes me smile. Not Doug, although he is remarkable and beautiful and a tiny, 4lb. miracle. No, what I'll remember most from that week in Austin was what a real community of love looks like.
It took a while to notice--Mike and Melissa are always preternaturally low key; it must be something in that Cajun water. But they never seemed to be nearly as concerned as we knew they must be.
The answer came a few days later. As we hung around early one evening, first one friend, then another, came in delivering food and desert. It was a simple thing, but powerful: you don't need to worry about food on the table, it's taken care of. Deaven and Halen hardly noticed, so used were they by now to friends and loved ones coming in the door to help their family in a time of need. But it stuck with us--look at that, we marveled, a daily delivery of love, and support. A simple thing, but profound, and all too often missing.
We all hear a lot of talk about safety nets, about how people fall through them. But what we were witnessing was that rare time when people are caught and saved by the safety nets in their lives. And this net was being woven, one meal, one dessert at a time, by threads in the form of their friends. None alone could bear the burden of helping the Wilson's in their time of need. But all, together, bore them so effortlessly that they could relax a bit, enjoy their guests and a temporary distraction from their worries, get on with the business of dealing with our complicated modern lives, and most importantly, giving their son the undivided attention and love that he needs right now.
The generosity of their friends was matched by the Wilsons in receiving it. It is a gift--truly--to give someone the gift of letting them help. Melissa and Mike, in their hour of great need, could have gone the easy, insular route: lots of take out, Domino's on speed dial. But by allowing the people that care about them to express their love and support, and trusting in it, they're allowing that rarest of things--real, genuine community--to spontaneously coalesce around their family. And in so doing, reminding everyone just what it means to really be there for the people who need us, how easy it can be to help, and how good it can feel to be that person.
Tonight, in the hospital, little Douglas Wilson lies sleeping, dreaming. I wonder if that rest is made better by knowing, somehow, intuitively, of the breadth and depth of the love that surrounds him? If as his chest rises and falls, he can feel the soft, unbreakable bonds of the net woven under him, by all the family that claims him as their own?
When my time came last month to see Doug in the hospital, I was awed, certainly, by his small size and frail thin body, though perhaps not too much owing to our own infant daughter. What was even more striking to me, however, were his parents. I couldn't help being surprised by how relaxed and focused they were. Concerned, yes, and certainly very busy, but able to be so in the moment of caring for Doug, and so open too to engaging with others--and I realized that's because just like Doug, they knew that there was someone there to catch them. Namely, all of you.
The threads we all spin, weaving the net of family, of community, of hope in times of trial, reach places we never imagine. Today, here in San Francisco, a similar "Care Calendar" got launched for our friends Tony and Mel, who just had twin boys, inspired by the one created for the Wilsons. Within hours, eight slots were filled up, and by the end of the week no doubt dozens will be. Your actions there are inspiring others, even all they way out here.
So to all the friends and family there in Austin supporting the Wilsons, thank you from those of us who can't be there in person. And thank you for giving them the love they so richly deserve. Doug is a very lucky boy, in so many ways, and growing up in a place like that, amidst people like you, is very high on the list of reasons why.
