Lighten My Load

Originally uploaded by laundrylessons.

My loads are lighter. Really, when I sorted out the laundry this morning, the Friday piles were about half the size as normal. Did I do more little loads this week? I don’t think so. I usually throw at least one or two baskets of stuff in a day and then do a big wash on Friday. But today, I only had four kind of smallish piles. I’m the queen of cramming as many clothes in the washer (yeah, I know, smaller loads are better, but I stink at laundry) so my piles are usually huge. Then it hits me…oh yeah, it’s summer. Shorts and t-shirts take up a whole lot less room than jeans and hoodies. Almost overnight, my loads shrank.

Burdens are like that. Troubles are huge, and then they shrink. We have kids with scary diseases or receive questionable MRIs results or certified letters with bad news and normal going-out-for-ice-cream-days are turned into huge piles of crud to sort and clean. When Merritt was first diagnosed with her mitochondrial disease, I never thought my load would lighten. The weight on my heart was like a load of wet jeans, two pairs per family member, slung on my sunny disposition. But time, and prayer, and faith, and friends help lighten the load.

In the fall I’ll probably be shocked and bothered when the loads become big again. I’ll moan and spend more time folding the bigger clothes. Troubles sneak up on us. And then life just has to stop for awhile. Right now Merritt is status quo. She’ll be in crisis mode again one day. That is just the nature of her disease. But I can’t dwell on those days. My biggest problem today is a cat with a yucky-looking eye that I can’t seem to locate for his vet appointment. I think one of the kids let him outside. Pretty small pile.

But I need to help someone whose load is bigger than mine today. Like the laundress I yearn for, I am helping my friend sort her piles of fear and sadness and grief and uncertainty. One of those sudden and shocking events landed in her life and she’s buried in its mess. But hopefully in a few weeks or months, her load will suddenly feel lighter and she’ll crawl out from under her pile, able to laugh with a fresh new outlook.

We’re all stuck in great mounds of crud. Some days it’s just an ailing cat or a kid with a splinter, but other days the unbearable weight of our burdens can bury us. I hope you have friends and faith and hope to help you when those days come. And if your pile is light today, be the laundress someone needs to help them sort their stuff.