How are you doing, really?

I’m angry, grumped out of my mouth as I’d stomped about the kitchen. We were cooking up a huge pot of dolmas but the water level was a bit too high so it was constantly bubbling over and splattering all around on the stove and floor. In a few hours guests would come over that I’d been putting off for nearly a week already. They wanted to come and pray with us. I understood why but it didn’t make me any happier.

Other people have perfectly clean houses but they also have someone staying home all the time who can cook and clean. They don’t think about these things. They don’t think about how when you’re not feeling well, you don’t have time to clean and tidy. I haven’t had time to myself this week to just sit and relax. Now I have to clean my house so people can come over and visit. So I’m angry.

My patient husband came over and looked at the wet floor. When the food finishes cooking, I can mop it, he said. He started organizing the bits and bobs on the kitchen table, then moved to the lounge. Realizing my grumpy mood wouldn’t change the fact that we would still have to tidy up, I started to help, picking up stray items and ferrying them to a pile on my bedroom dresser.

It looks much better now, doesn’t it? my husband proclaimed. I love you. Don’t be upset; I can help you and we can clean it up fast.

He was right. Together, we managed to make the house somewhat presentable. The day before, I had finally pushed myself to dust the living room and clean the bathroom after work. My husband had vacuumed, washed the steps, and done the dishes. Then we’d made up a batch of dolmas to take over to our friends.

I was wavering between emotions these days. The resident counselor whose small children attended the Cradle Roll Sabbath School class I taught had given me a huge hug afterward class. She’d reminded me that she was there for me professionally if I needed to talk and encouraged me to take care of my physical health to prepare for whatever lay ahead mentally and emotionally. I thanked her, knowing I didn’t need to talk yet but grateful she was there in case the worst happened. I was thankful for people who cared but at the same time I quickly got angry when it felt like they were being too intrusive.

I’m learning how to help others in similar situations, I told my husband as we lay on our adjoining sofas, relaxing at the end of a long uncertain week. Send them a message to tell them you’re praying for them, drop off an easy to eat dish and maybe give them a bit of money to help, give them a hug, let them know you’re there in case they need anything, and then Leave Them Alone. He nodded in agreement.

We came from vastly different backgrounds when it came to grief and loss in our cultures. His culture embraced the community, people coming together, sitting with you, driving hours to visit with you even if they were not immediate family or close family friends. In times of crisis, he knew he could count on so many people rallying together to help with food, money, a place to stay or any other number of things as the network expanded around the world.

I, on the other hand, while growing up in the same region as his, had not assimilated that part of the culture to the same extent as it came naturally to him. I swayed European for sure, valuing the spaces, politeness and reserve, calling ahead to make sure it was convenient to drop by. Support yes, but in a dignified demure manner, offered as needed but never pushed on the person.

So now, as we waited for news of my sister-in-law who still lay in critical condition in the hospital, we welcomed the community’s support but processed it in different ways. At first, I was thankful for the messages as each one signified another prayer to God to spare my sister-in-law’s life. They distracted me from dealing with the reality that it was a very serious situation and helped me feel a little less helpless. As I shared the oh-so-heavy burden with others, it didn’t seem so terrible to carry anymore.

As soon as I heard anything, I would send out updates via WhatsApp to the 110 or more people in my contact list. After the first few days, though, there were no more immediate updates. Now it was a matter of assessment and waiting. They didn’t understand that, however. Messages started to bombard me now at all hours of the day. How is she? Any updates? The any updates? part really got to me. I felt like I was their live social media feed, constantly being refreshed with the swipe of a thumb, for the latest news. And.I.Didn’t.Have.Any.News. I started to regret having informed so many people, though I knew it was important to activate prayer chains around the world to come together and intercede for my sister-in-law. But I didn’t know how to handle the barrage. So finally I told them.

I don’t have anything new for today. Of course I will send updates when we have updates available. But I am getting messages constantly asking me for updates and it becomes overwhelming to try to answer everyone. It makes me feel like I am people’s live Instagram feed and I cannot give information I don’t have. I understand everything wants to help and I really appreciate it. When we know anything significant, we will share. The best we can all help right now is to continue to pray for her. Thank you so much for your prayers.

I read and re-read my message, then pressed Send. To each of the people I’d been sending updates to. Some answered affirming my message and saying they would continue praying. Others respectfully read the message and didn’t respond. And finally the questions stopped coming. On WhatsApp.

They didn’t stop in-person though. Each day in the office, people would pass me, stop and ask how my sister-in-law was doing. Most of them were people in the WhatsApp group where I had sent the message, so it baffled me that it did not register that asking in-person was akin to asking via a message. I sighed inwardly, put on an appropriately somber face, and replied, Nothing new. Please continue to pray for her. Thank you for asking.

When they asked, How are you doing? I replied, Fine, thank you, or alternated with, I’m doing good, thanks. What else was I supposed to say? I was never going to say exactly how I felt, primarily angry that they were trying to invade into my world by asking questions as if they cared when they hadn’t cared before. I couldn’t cry on demand; I’d done my crying in private but was still operating somewhat in autopilot when it came to being emotional. I was trying to hold on to hope for now, hope that everything would be okay in the end, hope that her lungs would re-inflate, the bleeding in the brain would stop, and she would start breathing on her own again. Everything else could be fixed somehow, ribs mended on their own, a broken hand could be cast, she could live without a spleen. But if I would allow myself to truly feel the panic of the unknown, then I would not be able to function and I had to teach a class, work, clean a house, and feed a husband every day so I didn’t have time to think about how I really felt. So I retreated to the socially acceptable reply of Fine, thank you and hoped those who asked didn’t think I was heartless and cold.

I wondered if I would be angry if nobody asked. If nobody came to visit. If nobody dropped off food. I knew people genuinely wanted to help and realized that, like me many a time before when someone else was going through a difficult time, most probably they didn’t know how best to help. So I tried to be gracious and attribute the best of intentions to them but there were days where I felt like I had run out of patience. Days where the inquiries felt disingenuous at best; where I thought, You barely knew her name and said hello when you passed her on the sidewalk, why are you suddenly so interested in knowing all the details about her now? It felt like they wanted to know simply to satisfy their morbid curiosity.

One woman had asked my husband a question about my sister-in-law’s condition and then walked away before he had even had the chance to formulate an answer. When she returned, he said, Why did you leave before I answered the question? And she apologized, mumbling something about how busy she was, said I can listen now as she looked down, eyes glued to her phone, thumbs texting furiously. He finished his business and left, asking me later, Why do people even ask if they don’t want to know? He was right.

I realized I would have to decide on a standard answer and use that every time somebody asked how my sister-in-law was doing. An answer that would not invite new questions but would communicate enough so that people felt satisfied and would not insist more.

She’s still in the hospital in the same condition. We’re just waiting to see what happens.

It worked. I accepted that every day I would see one, or 6, or 8 people who would ask me how she was doing. I would have to answer them. But I would not have to do more than give a simple answer. It was all I could handle and it was enough for now. We would deal with the next hurdle when it came.