Getting the Help You Need

When I was a kid, I was fiercely, even foolishly independent. I wanted to prove I could handle everything without anyone’s help or support. “I’ve got this!” was my go-to response when someone offered assistance. I see some of that drive for independence in my two- and four-year-old children, and it seems to be a part of their natures as it was a core part of mine. However, with age and experience comes the realization that we all need help at various points in our lives.

About a month ago I had an experience of needing help, and receiving it, at exactly the right time. I keep reflecting upon that moment in time because it was so impactful. I was in the car with my wife and two-year-old son, who was in a moment of respiratory distress. We live four miles from the Children’s Hospital of Atlanta, and we were heading straight for the Emergency Room. Earlier that day, about an inch of snow fell (which is very unusual for our city), and by night the melting snow had transformed into a sheet of ice. Atlanta doesn’t salt the roads, and the hills are significant, so when ice coats the streets it’s a serious challenge (recall Snowpocalypse 2014). I had 4 miles to get to the ER. Cars were slipping, sliding, and spinning out. Many dozens of cars were pulled to the side, and as I was driving, people kept motioning for me to slow down, which I knew I couldn’t do. 

I came up to the hill where North Druid Hills hits Clairemont, and I knew this was the last major hill on the journey. Suddenly a pickup truck ahead of us started sliding back down the hill directly towards our car, and I had to swerve from my lane to avoid an accident. We lost momentum. The wheels of my sedan were now spinning, unable to catch an edge on the icy road. I kept changing gears, trying to get some traction, and nothing was working. My son was going limp in my wife’s arms. My wife and I had both already called 911, but with all the wrecks, nobody was answering: we would both end up spending 15 minutes on hold before giving up on those emergency calls. 

Wheels spinning and starting to feel desperate, imagining taking my son and running the four miles to the hospital, I looked to my left and saw a middle-aged man walking up the sidewalk, likely having abandoned his own car at the base of the hill with so many others. We made eye contact, and then he walked into the icy street towards me. I rolled down my window and told him my son was having trouble breathing and we were trying to make it to the hospital. Without saying a word, he walked to the back of the car, leaned in and started to push. Finally, amazingly, we caught an edge, and the car began to slowly roll up the hill. We avoided a couple of very near accidents and finally ended up at the Emergency Room, where my wife ran out with our son in arms and the doctors could provide the life-saving epinephrine and steroids and oxygen he needed.

During the two nights I spent in the hospital with my son, I kept thinking about that man who showed up at the exact moment we most needed help. And I kept replaying that night, contemplating what might have happened had he not shown up. I was never able to go back and thank him and tell him what his act of generosity meant to me and my family.

That has led me to a cascade of thoughts about all the help I need and receive in my life.

As we get older, we need more help. Every 6 weeks I get infusions derived from the plasma given by thousands of donors who I will never meet and can never thank. Walking in the street, at the checkout of my grocery store, eating at a restaurant, I might be right next to someone who gives blood and is helping me to live my life and be present for my children. It’s humbling to need and to receive help. 

Working with young people, I think often about the balance between independence and help-seeking. In my youth, I used to perceive help-seeking as weakness, but now I teach students how to ask for and get the assistance they need. Sometimes I see my students struggling, even failing, and it’s my job to help them reframe the act of asking for help and allowing others to help them.

The strongest students are the ones who can identify the help they need and then actively seek out that support. There’s no need to fail the class or go without the internship when your own resources are coming up short. Sometimes, you do get lucky, and the right person miraculously shows up to provide the exact help you need at the moment you need it, but most of the time you have to reach out and be willing to be helped. 

As parents, we want to balance providing the right level of support to our kids while simultaneously fostering our children’s autonomy, independence, problem-solving skills, and self-direction. Ultimately, we want to build resourceful, independent adults. Part of being a high-functioning adult is knowing when and how to reach out to ask for help. We cannot do it all ourselves. We need others, as they need us. If we can conceive of ourselves as being part of a great network, where we give to others, help others, and allow ourselves to receive and be helped by others, the world is a much better place. And if you have the chance to help someone else, maybe someone who will never be able to repay your act of kindness, know you might have an impact well beyond what you could ever imagine.

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