Helping Roberto Move

It was my 43rd birthday. Another homeschooling family had asked my boys to help them move. Seems that Roberto landed a job with the park service in Arizona and he needed some “muscle” (aka my teenaged boys) to help load the 40’ truck.



We got there at the appointed time. He had told us the Friday before that they were nearly packed, so we drove up expecting to simply help load the big items… and walked into a house that wasn’t packed at all.

There was quite a bit of stuff in the truck, but not, it seemed, household or kitchen items, clothing and necessities, most of which weren’t even in boxes yet. And there weren’t any more boxes. Most of what was on that truck was their “stuff”. I wasn’t angry, in fact I found myself vaguely surprised that I understood completely how this had happened, and even more astounded as I looked around that I had a clear grasp of the time and space issues: they had to leave that night in order to make it to Arizona to report to the new job.

Okay, drill sergeant time. Which is a nice way of saying that I turned bossy. Lift this, move that, this next. Put this on top of that. Stack that back there. Reminders that the truck was filling up rapidly, and that they needed to prioritize. The remarkable thing: I found that I wasn’t judging them for their lack of preparedness. It was simply a fact that had to be dealt with. I couldn’t help thinking that I was very surprised that I had any idea what to do, how, or in what order. It was a full, frontal recognition of the fact that a year ago — before the FlyLady — this family was ME. In fact, the last times I’d moved, what our family and friends found when they came to help us was far less organized than what was at hand.

As I helped Roberto (his wife had been called back to work for one last day and needing the money badly, she went), I did it as a gift to their family. But I also pitched in for a couple of other reasons.

First, I’ve been fortunate to have received a lot of help over the years. Albert’s Grandmother used to come to my aide with all that laundry, all those dishes and with holding fussy infants back when my babies were little and I found myself so overwhelmed. Fifteen years ago, I asked what I could do to repay her for all she had done for me. The answer I’ve tried to commit to heart. All she asked was that I “pass it on”. She was helping because she loved us, but she was also doing it to repay the lady who had helped her way back when Grandma was struggling with life as a new mom. That lady had asked Grandma to “pass it on” and I was her opportunity.

So Roberto had given me an opportunity to chalk up a couple of hours of “passing it on” for all those who’ve helped me over the years.

But most of all, helping Roberto gave me an unexpected chance to be kind to part of me. For most of my life I operated as a sidetracked adolescent-in-an-adult-body who faced the same challenge as Roberto was facing: how to get done what I had to do in the time that I had to do it in. Yes, helping the family gave me occasion to learn just how far I’d come, but I also got the opportunity to be kind to myself, for some of my own previous inability to handle the task at hand.

We stayed two and a half hours. The job wasn’t finished when we left but we had put quite a dent in it. I thought about them that night before I went to bed and said a prayer for their safety as they struck out towards their new life. They’ll never know that they’d given me an opportunity to heal.

Thanks, Roberto. Your asking us to help ended up being quite a gift to me.



Jackie Zimmerer is a wife and mother of four sons. She attends St. John's Catholic Church in the Diocese of Fort Worth, Texas.

Subscribe to CE
(It's free)

Go to Catholic Exchange homepage

MENU