Charity!

Right at this moment there are plenty of things on my to do list, yet I just can’t wait to get this off my chest.

You know that my posts are “authentic”, meaning ugly and truthful. So you have been warned.

Couple days ago an offer from my former boss came that she would love to fundraise this Christmas for my family. And that’s where this strange, upsetting roller coaster of thoughts began.

Why are they doing it? Do we look like we are struggling? Do they just have a preconceived notion that if you have a one kid dead and one severely disabled you must be struggling? Are we struggling? Why does the first question bother me more than the last one? Shit…

I don’t think we look like we are struggling, but that depends on how high your bar is. If by struggling you mean no mani pedi and the only clothing item bought in the last year were jeans for $15 in Target, that you just had to buy since you are too fat to fit into the majority of your clothes in your closet. Then yes holy shit I’m suffering terribly. But I don’t feel that I’m lacking anything important. I have my own roof above my head, my family is not hungry and I have an alive kid. If you tell this to people their first reaction is “quite the low standards you have”, but if you really think about it, that is all you truly need (ok apart form that magic person to share this package with, yup you guessed I have never called my hubby a “soulmate”).

Do people think we should be struggling? Hell yeah, being a one income family in the suburbs of one of the most expensive cities in the world is something unimaginable. Surviving the loss of your second grader and raising very disabled baby is a tough go. So yeah, we should be, who wouldn’t be?

Are we struggling? …yes, but my brain can’t interrupt that thought fast enough with the “but so are other families”. Why am I balling my eyes out right now? Because I have stopped admitting this some time ago. In the name of survival this admission was replaced by “you got this, you freaking survived picking up your kid’s ashes from the funeral home, you can manage this shit, easily”, desperately believing that if you repeat this long enough you start believing it too.

Yes we are struggling with never ending grieving. We will never get over loosing our Sara and every day we are given new thing to grieve about… like seeing kids sit on Santa’s lap looking nicely into the camera and smiling. Our child can’t do any of those three things, not this year, not next, maybe never but I don’t want to think about that.

Yes I’m struggling with keeping our household clean and organized to the level I expect of myself. Lower you standards then, not so fast. That would mean admitting that I can’t do it, and I don’t do defeat.

We are struggling with not having “personal time”, but other parents of small kids don’t have that either.

So the answer is yes, we are struggling, but so is everyone else. Nobody has it all, maybe on Instagram, but not in real life.

And here we go again. Why do I feel so uncomfortable accepting other people’s charity? It’s plain to see. Accepting charity means admitting I need it. By admitting I need it I’m saying I failed… and I don’t do defeat.

My life keeps trying to arrange for lessons in humility, but call me old fashioned, or plain stubborn. Even if life is beating the shit out of me and I’m on the ground in a pool of blood with my last breath on my lips, I would still whisper :” fuck you” just to have the last word.

So there, I’m exhausted by my mental gymnastics and no closer to the answer to what do I do with this offer, but at least I know why I feel the way I feel.

What would you do?