My family gave me a pretty remarkable gift this weekend. In a scheme I cooked up with my coach and with skills built by my therapist, I’ve been at the River doing mostly nothing for 2 whole days.

Not only that, my family didn’t just work together to meet my needs, with food and snacks and books and bubble bath. They also met the needs of my son, husband and dog. (Lucy, the cat, pretty much does her own thing anyways.)

My inlaws and aunt cleaned my house of the insane amount of construction debris from my house. Kevin kept Conor at their house all weekend so he could play video games and soccer with Landon and Ollie. Brandy picked out books for me to read (very spicy indeed) and picked up my favorite snacks. Erin and Jim made sure Preston had company and food. My dad picked up Conor from school and is taking him to basketball practice. My aunt Chris and uncle John sent some money for me to pick out any books or treats for the weekend. Ray and Debora kept Luna. Richard and Cathy brought me dinner from Spoon River and Richard helped me with the water turn on because there were spiders. My sister coordinated the whole damn thing and made me food and sent flowers.

I read 2 books and listened to one. I did a couple of relaxing and satisfying chores around the house here. I learned a new song on the guitar. I breathed and I wrote and I slept and I listened to rain on our new metal roof and I watched 4 chick flicks. I ate food that nourished my body and I ate junk food. I accidentally drank an entire bottle of sangria in about an hour and therefore took a nap at 7 pm.

I had nowhere to be and nothing that had to get done.

It’s no secret that this winter has been a difficult one for the Willcox family. Preston’s painful metastises in his spine and hip have limited his mobility. We were all very sick with the croup over the holidays, and poor Conor has endured food poinsoning (from his birthday dinner of all things) and strep throat since then.

We’ve found some bright spots, too. With the help of Preston’s new palliative care team, we made it to a Jason Isbell concert in Greensboro, that just the week before had felt like an impossibility. Conor’s birthday sleepover that had to be rescheduled was a lot of fun. Brendan and Lauren made it up for a visit that was rejuvenating for all of us.

But, y’all, it has still been a lot. Cancer is scary and hard, and watching Preston in pain – with very little I can do to help – is one of the most difficult things I have ever done. Palliative care has been a gift, but it’s still intense. The doctors are optimistic they can treat the mets in his spine, but until they can figure it out, we just have to keep moving, keep waiting, keep surviving, keep trying.

This weekend I didn’t have to “keep moving” or even make decisions. It has been the mental equivalent of turning the computer off and back on again. Nothing fundamental changed, but it works just a little bit better.

The last six and a half years have been challenging in ways I couldn’t have conceptulalized. For someone so fiercely independent and determined, not being able to FIX THE THINGS or SOLVE THE PROBLEM or DO IT MYSELF is hard. So I’m really, really proud that I asked, and made space for, these 48 quiet hours.

And I’m extremely grateful that Conor went with the flow, and Preston encouraged me, and my family caught me in this terrific net that felt like a big group hug. It’s enough to make my nose tingle and my eyes water a bit when I think too hard about it.

Friends, do you know that you, too, are worthy of this rest and comfort? And that you don’t need to wait until your brain feels like a bee hive and your body weak and heavy with exhaustion?

One of the books I am reading this weekend is called A Prayer for the Crown Shy. It is the second “Monk and Robot” book by Becky Chambers. A passage I read this morning while bundled in a fleece that used to be my mom’s with a warm cup of coffee while on the screen porch listening to the mockingbirds and North wind across the Pungo said this:

“That was all right, they reminded themself, even though part of them still felt as though they hadn’t earned the hot soak or the good food.

Welcome comfort, they reminded themself, rubbing the little pectin-printed bear with their thumb. Without it, you cannot stay strong.”