Of Use
Christa was doing the dishes again.
This is not unusual. She is constantly doing something for me, for the kids, for the house, for whatever part of our life is currently threatening to come loose. She holds more of it together than I know how to account for.
But, I had been planning to do those dishes later.
So, I told her to stop.
She did not stop.
Of course she didn’t.
And, sitting there watching her do one more thing I had intended to do myself, I said, “I just want to be of use to you.”
What struck me first was my voice.
It didn’t break.
My speech has become unreliable enough that I notice these things now. A sentence can come out strained or fractured or simply fail to sound like the sentence I heard in my head. But, this one came out clean.
There is nothing mystical about that. Still, it felt strange. Almost as though my body understood that this particular sentence needed to arrive intact.
Then came the weight of what I had said.
Not while I was thinking it. Not even while I was saying it. Afterward.
“I just want to be of use to you.”
It felt much larger than the dishes.
I could probably write pages about disability and dependence, about marriage, about what it means to watch someone you love absorb work you once would have done without thinking. I could explain how grateful I am for Christa. I could explain how difficult it is to receive so much help. I could explain the strange arithmetic that begins when your contribution to a family becomes harder to measure in ordinary physical terms.
But, somehow that little sentence said more.
I don’t want to repay her. That isn’t what love is, and there is no ledger capable of holding a marriage anyway.
I don’t even think I want things to be equal in some perfectly balanced sense.
I just want to be of use to her.
To make something easier.
To take something from her hands instead of always having something taken from mine.
Maybe that is why the sentence hurt a little after I heard myself say it. It exposed something I usually keep wrapped in better language.
There was no philosophy in it. No attempt to make peace with anything.
Just a husband watching his wife wash dishes he had meant to wash, trying to tell her something much bigger than the dishes.
And, for once, his voice held.
I just want to help
I just wish I could do more
You don’t expect it
But, you deserve the help
Even something small. Something faint
