Author: Aideé Granados
February 9, 2016
I like to think and say that there is much more wealth in GIVING than in RECEIVING. I believe it and I have lived it that way. It is one of my axes and values. However, sometimes we are called to simply RECEIVE. And this is very good!
I tell you this story…
Just three days after the cancer diagnosis was confirmed, my doctor scheduled surgery to place the port or catheter, through which they would put chemotherapy. He had no time to plan and organize. Treatment began immediately.
We had just moved to live in California. We didn't know ANYONE. My family was in Mexico. My husband's in Minnesota. Due to various family circumstances, I knew that the most available person at that time was nothing more and nothing less than my mother-in-law.
So my mother-in-law came home to stay and live with us for a while. When would I have imagined it? Never!
For those who know me well, one of my greatest difficulties is that I find it difficult to ask, accept and receive help. I think I am self-sufficient. The reality is that I am not, much less was under the circumstances of my health condition.
My mother-in-law arranged to help us :. He healed me, gave me medicine, prepared my juices, was my bedside chauffeur, cooked, washed my clothes and put them away, kept cleaning the house incessantly, played with my daughter as if she were also 3 years old. He exercised with me, and I could follow this endless list of his contributions and helps.
If I had had any "pity" or "prejudice" with her (since she was my husband's mother), during that time it was completely taken away from me. The truth is, I had no other option. I confess it was hard. And I feel like for everyone in my family it was too.
At different times during the chemotherapy and surgery treatment, my sisters Lis and Marcela had come to help me; my aunts, Mary and Olín; some of my best friends: Nicoletta, Michelle, Monica, Anamore, plus our most beloved superstar nanny, Maria. But my mother-in-law?
Thanks to your extreme generosity, we achieved one of the greatest learnings during cancer and its healing process: it is WONDERFUL and NECESSARY, to ask, accept and receive help.
It is good to be cared for. It is good to let yourself be loved. It is good to be spoiled. It is good to rest. It is good to have a "shadow". It's good. Very good! Good for those who receive it, and good for those who offer it.
For my mother-in-law, none of this was easy. Starting with having to leave my father-in-law alone for so long, breaking with his routines, with his customs. My mother-in-law didn't do what she did for a daughter-in-law. My mother-in-law did what she did for a daughter. It was just as if my mother had done it herself. That has even more value. Thank you Lori for getting into my life!
