Each Sunday we go out to lunch with my mother (your GrandMoM?). It always happens after church and it also almost always takes place at Denny’s. It’s her thing. The lady loves her some Denny’s, what can I say?

Since she knows she will get an “audience” with me each week, she tends to save up her questions about various and sundry things for our Sunday lunch dates. This week was no different. She totted up to the table with her purse over her shoulder, her cane in one hand and a big vinyl document envelope in the other. Oh boy…

Let’s start by verifying that she just turned 90 and is demented. Literally, she suffers from a bit of dementia, so she can tend to get confused. She also has a decidedly “Old School” approach to things and keeps pretty much every piece of paper that arrives in the mail, including the envelopes . Her file cabinet array is impressive.

In the moment at hand she was asking me to decipher what each piece of mail was about and what she should do with them. They were pretty much all junk mail, but she found some reason for us to write “File” on them. Some of this is her inherent hoarding nature, but a lot of it is down to the dementia. She is afraid that she will make a mistake and miss something. I can’t imagine how unsettling that would feel.

So we sorted the mail and made the requested notes. We even did it 4 times on the renewal notice for one of her many newsletter subscriptions. Literally 4 times. Was it annoying? Sure. But it was also what life is like.

How many times has my own sponsor written some note on a piece of junk mail because I couldn’t do it on my own? How many times has one of my accountability partners watched me completely miss the point of what is happening at the moment? How many times has my Higher Power (Jesus Christ, for those of you keeping score at home) had to do for me what I couldn’t do for myself?

The answer to all of these is: a lot!

I’ve got to keep this in mind as I work with my mom and as I navigate my recovery. We all need help and that is exactly why we need a higher power. I am pretty good at a few things, but I will never be enough on my own. I need a lot of help in order to…

—Ruse Up!!