Social Activism

So....
I go to a postpartum depression group once a week - Mondays to be exact.
A couple Monday's ago was a hard day for me. Not because I was having difficulty, but because there was a new woman there, and her story was overwhelming.

This is how it goes:
She and her husband moved to Canada from the Netherlands in December 2006. She was 6 months pregnant at the time. Her husband was not legally allowed to work, but she was, so she went to work right away. She worked 60 hours a week for 6 weeks, then her daughter was born prematurely.
She had a horrible birth experience.
Her husband will be considered for a working visa later this year. First he has to re-write his English test in June. Then they have to wait 3-6 months (or more knowing our government) to get approved before he can start looking for a job.
So, since this woman can work and her hubby can't, she has gone back to work already. Her daughter is only 9 weeks old.
This woman also has 2 masters degrees, but of course she has to get a low-paying job because she is an immigrant and can't get a job in her field of expertise yet. So she is working at a Co-op grocery store.
Their savings are running out and will be gone in 2 months. Her husband found the place they are currently living in. The rent is way to expensive for them. Her husband will not look for a cheaper place to live, so now this woman has to begin the search because practically speaking they cannot live where they are any longer.

Listening to her speak caused me to feel totally overwhelmed. How do you adjust to all that? All at once? No wonder this woman is suffering from depression. Her life circumstances suck right now! And, she has a brand new daughter who she can't really bond with.

Another woman got up and brought ME some tissue as this woman was telling her story.

At the end of the group, we have to pick one task to accomplish during the week. This task must be only for ourselves, "self-care" they call it. This is because women with postpartum depression suck at taking care of themselves. This woman said she couldn't think of anything. The only thing she could think of, she couldn't do. She likes to watch the TV series "The Gilmore Girls" but she can't because it is on Tuesday nights and she has to work that night. And she has no VCR to record it.

I can't get her out of my head. And I don't even know her name. I mean, she said her name, but it was some sort of strange viking, Netherlands name that I didn't understand, probably can't pronounce, and of course can't remember.

I came home and told Cris about her. He said we should have them over for supper and give them a break from the regular grind of day-to-day living. But, of course there is a rule in the group that you can't be friends while you are in the group, the reason being that nothing brings a depressed person down faster than another depressed person.

So, feeling like I wanted to help, I set out to find this woman a VCR so she could do something for herself that she enjoyed. I don't really know anyone from our church, and I felt unsure of who to ask. I ended up placing a want ad for a VCR on Kijiji Calgary telling a tiny bit of this woman's situation. I got 3 responses back! I was actually surprised! The first response was from someone who had a VCR to give to me for free. The second response was from someone who wanted to give this woman some gently used baby girl clothes. The third response was from someone who could probably find a VCR, wanted to donate some baby girl clothes, and was going to throw in a gift card from a grocery store!
So I coordinated picking these items up last weekend and brought them with me to my postpartum group on Monday.

I spoke to the group leader and told her what I wanted to do, but of course that I wanted to do it anonymously. I was nervous that she would receive the items poorly or that she would feel needy or incompetent or think that I thought she was needy or incompetent. So the group leader came up with cunning way to give her these items without actually giving them to her. She said at the beginning of the group, "Someone has donated some items. They are on the back table. There is a VCR there. Um....hmmm...Hey M (I know the Netherlands woman's name starts with an M, but I can't remember the rest of it) weren't you saying last week that you didn't have a VCR? Well...there's one here for you if you want. There's also some baby girl clothes in a box back there that you can help yourself to." Netherlands woman is the only one with a baby girl. The rest of us have baby boys. So this gave her opportunity to go take the items instead of having someone give them to her. And she did. She took everything. I kept hearing her say "wow" as she was looking through the stuff.

What made me really happy was that Netherlands woman shared during the group that they had bought a barbeque last weekend. I'm hoping that's a sign that their financial situation is starting to look up.

At the end of all this, I did get a mini-lecture from the group leader. She said it in a very nice way. She said, "Dawnelle, I want to give you permission to leave everybody else's junk at group. You don't have to take it home with you..."
I had already done a lot of thinking about my motivation for helping this woman. Was I trying to rescue her? Did I feel responsible for her? Was this just the Christian response? Or did I just want to give her a boost with an act of kindness?

I decided I felt no obligation, I just wanted to do a little something for another hurting person. So I did. And I think it's really cool that 3 other complete strangers partnered with me to help this woman!!