A Cracked Egg

I was thinking this afternoon about a piece I've read in the past about how a little chick/duckling/gosling/bird needs to peck its own way out of its egg.  I remember hatching babies before and it is so hard to keep from helping them once you start seeing their beaks pecking through the outer layer of the shell.  The secret is; if they are deprived of doing the hard work themselves, they don't develop enough strength to survive.  I've actually seen this happen, where a chick was helped too much and it wasn't strong enough to stay alive.

Isn't this true to a large degree with all of us?

With our children whom we want to save from suffering any hardships?  With our spouse?  With our ailing parent?  With our grandchild who seems to need divine grandmother intervention?

As much as we would all love to fix everything for those we love, most often the ones we love most need to go through the chipping away at life largely on their own or they are deprived.  If someone from the outside intervenes too much, they are denied their own journey; their own path.  They aren't granted their inner strength and knowledge to learn to trust their own coping abilities.  They aren't allowed to try and fail, and learn from the failing.

When my grandmother was put into a nursing home, I found myself giving beyond what I should have given.  I spent hours upon hours by her side, helping her do some of the things that she should have tried doing for herself.  I look back and see how even though she was weak and suffering, I think a better sense of "dignity" would have remained had she been given the opportunity to struggle.  I don't mean to sound harsh.  But that situation and the way I handled it actually ended up taking away from both of us.  Hindsight is so much easier. 

I think there is a fine line between trying too hard to help those who seem to need help and staying back a healthy distance.  Sometimes I think it's our need to feel needed that interferes with a more natural process.

Still searching for all the answers.....

How does a daughter watch her mother change and allow her to grow into those changes?  And how do I listen to a little girl (granddaughter) who I'd like to be able to scoop up into my arms 24/7?  It takes a lot more letting go than I think I'm capable of right now.  But hopefully I'll figure it out more and more as each day leads into the next.