Why Asking For Help Makes Military Wives
Stronger
by:
Sarah Smiley
There are two things I hate doing: the lawn and the trash. When
counting down the days until homecoming, some women choose to track
paydays, school days, or Mondays. Me? I always counted trash days.
“Just 12 more times of taking out the trash,” I’d yell across the
street to my neighbor as I rolled the can to the curb.
And when the cruise (my husband’s first in 2001) was extended, not a
neighbor was spared my ranting and raving over having to take out the
trash “yet another two weeks!” Each time I rolled the green, heavy bin
down the driveway, I considered it one of the most intolerable jobs of
a Navy wife.
That same deployment my front yard was invaded with fire ants, crab
grass, and some type of crepe myrtle fungus, which was never
identified. I let these problems go “unnoticed,” believing they might
magically disappear and I wouldn’t have to actually care for the grass
myself.
And the yard problems did go away. My sympathetic neighbor next door
became my complimentary yardman. (Although, I’ve always wondered if it
was true charity which prompted him to mow my grass each week, or
rather a fear that the chinch bugs would crawl over to his side.)
Either way, I had free lawn service.
Occasionally, a neighbor would take pity on me and replace my trashcan
back to the side of the house after the garbage men were done with it.
And once, when I had maggots in the bottom of the bin, a few men from
the neighborhood were nice enough to dispose of them and Clorox the
trashcan, and not tell me about the whole incident until a year later
(they knew better).
“It takes a village to do Sarah’s trash,” one neighbor joked.
And sometimes it also took a village to change Sarah’s flat tire, to
kill big bugs in her living room, and to fetch her son’s toy airplane
that landed on the roof.
Towards the end of that deployment, I began to feel guilty. I wondered
if I wasn’t being strong enough and if I shouldn’t take my title of
“Navy dependent” so literally as to mean I was, well, dependent.
“Don’t be silly,” my neighbors would say. “We’re glad to help.” More
than hanging a flag from their door, they said helping a Navy family
made them feel like they were doing their part.
Surprisingly (to me), despite doing my lawn every week and occasionally
my trash and home repairs, these neighbors often told me I was far from
“dependent.”
Instead of focusing on the things I was not doing myself, my neighbors
were in awe at the things I had done alone. And most of these things
(caring for sick babies in the middle of the night, dealing with
emergencies), I had done without my realizing it or giving myself
credit.
I learned that being strong and independent doesn’t necessarily mean
doing it all.
Most things in life do require a “village,” and there are few people
who can do everything themselves. It’s OK to ask for and accept help.
Most people are eager to give it.
We all have our limits (apparently mine are maggots and chinch bugs),
and it’s best if we know them. That’s the true makings of a strong
military wife.
