Real Support

“This is for you.”

As I opened the ribbon bound envelope and turned over the colourfully presented card, my eyes welled up in tears. “We know what you are going through and thought this might help.”

For the past 9 years my wife and I have been caring for my mum in the apartment joined to our house. Just a door separated our lives. In the last three years, dementia has slowly taken mum’s memory. The good thing was she never lost her sense of happiness and kindness. The bad thing was leukemia did. Mum passed away in November 2024.

“Comfortable in my sadness” I would say to people who asked how I was. However, only known to a few close supports, there were other heavy distractions that were weighing down my emotional backpack.

It is not important as to what they were but combined with grief, it was like decision fatigue hit a new level of exhaustion.

And then a hit of oxytocin from a loving couple, boosted my spirits and lightened my backpack via a gift voucher for a massage. Oxytocin is one of the Happiness Quartet. Being mentally fit helps you attain this self-manufactured chemical that aids in reducing stress.

As much as I appreciated the condolence cards and verbal well wishes which all stimulated the oxytocin, my wonderful, beautiful friends engaged in deep empathy and purchased an experience that would physically help my mental fitness. Hence the tears. The gratefulness in not only the gift but the thought.

There are many ways of increasing people’s oxytocin, the connection molecule, but there is nothing that says I understand than an action that reflects where you are at. There can never be a world with too much support and kindness.

PS I am rewarding myself with the massage soon and will be thinking of all the wonderful people who care and are kind.