Just show up
A bat mitzvah and the quiet labor women carry for one another
This past weekend, I was with my dear friend Nikki, celebrating her daughter’s bat mitzvah, and I am still processing so many aspects of the whole experience.
A bat mitzvah is a Jewish coming-of-age ceremony for a girl who turns 13, marking the transition into religious responsibility and adulthood. But that simple definition barely touches what it felt like to be there. The whole weekend was full of meaning, labor, tenderness, pride, and the kind of invisible work that mothers do so often that no one notices until you stop long enough to see it.
How we got here
Nikki, and I met a few years ago in the rooms of recovery, through a local subgroup of Laura McKowen’s sobriety support community, The Luckiest Club (or TLC). We started a Marco Polo video chat and have been talking every day since, about nothing and everything. About the small things that make up a day and the bigger things that make up a life.
That daily check-in has become one of the most essential parts of my day, and her friendship has become one of the most important in my life.
There is something about a friend who is not just a friend, but a witness to your becoming. There is something even more precious about that friend also being on a sober path, because if you have tried to stay sober, you know this: you do not do it alone. As they say in those recovery rooms of TLC where we met, “you can’t do it alone, but only you can do it.”
The work behind the celebration
A bat mitzvah is a huge undertaking, not just for the child, but for the whole family. There is planning, logistics, emotional energy, and all the ordinary chaos that comes with making something holy and beautiful happen well. My family and I made the trip from Austin to Fort Worth to celebrate Nikki’s daughter, and I tried to come up early to help, but Nikki said, “No, I got it, just come up with your family.”
The day of the bat mitzvah, I did what I think women often do for one another when we are at our best: I did not keep asking whether she needed help. I just stayed. I told her I was hanging out with her in the space between the service and the party, and what I really meant was this.
I knew she needed support, and I knew she was not going to ask for it.
It was my absolute pleasure to step in, and there was, of course, PLENTY for me to do.
Why do we not ask
Debriefing after this weekend, as we do, Nikki and I were talking about how hard it is for women to ask for help.
Why is that?
Why do so many of us act like needing support is a weakness, when in reality, so much of life is simply too much for one person to hold alone? We wait until we are exhausted, overwhelmed, or emotionally maxed out before we let someone in? Why do we keep pretending we can carry everything ourselves?
And I actually do not think I learned this kind of showing up from my own mother or from the women in my family. I learned it through the example of other women who showed up later in my adult life.
The women who taught me
One of the first women who showed me what this looked like was the social worker in the pediatric ICU where I worked for fifteen years. Her name is Kelly, and she and I were fast friends, share the same birthday, and people often mistake us for sisters.
She is still one of my best friends today, and happens to be in recovery as well, although neither of us got sober until years after we met. She has stepped up for me in ways both big and small, and one time in particular I will never forget.
I was at a public pool with my twin five-year-old girls and was VERY pregnant with my son. It was the second birthday party of the day, and I was that kind of bone-tired you only know in pregnancy. There was no shade, and I did not have a swimsuit. It was August in Texas, so I was already drenched in sweat the second I arrived. Kelly happened to be there with one of her kids.
One of my twin daughters completely lost her shit because she had not passed the swim test to be able to swim in the deep end, and I had no energy left to comfort her. I wanted so desperately to at least get in the pool to play with her and help diffuse the situation, but remember, no swimsuit. Kelly stepped in and made it all better. Simple as that.
I sat on the concrete in the only triangle of shade I could find and cried with gratitude.
What was no big deal to her, meant everything to me. When your child’s heart is breaking, and you feel helpless and exhausted, there is no sweeter relief than another mother lending a hand.
The gift of stepping in
And since then, there have been other women who have this particular gift of showing up and taking care of all the things, without even being asked. My mother-in-law came and stayed with us for two months after my twins were born, and I couldn’t have made it through that time without her. She would get up in the middle of the night, so my husband could get sleep, as there was no paternity leave and he had to work, change the diapers, and get them ready for me to breastfeed. When your babies are born, just over 5 pounds each, and you are breastfeeding every two hours for upwards of two months until they make their weight, this is sanity, my friends.
And my friend Meredith, who is also in recovery, has an exquisite gift for showing up big, too. She not only insists on throwing elaborate celebrations for all the occasions, complete with incredible homemade swag, but she will also fly in from across the country to have dinner with you if she thinks you need a pick-me-up. A full-time working mama of two, who is also the sole caregiver for her aging mother. The woman’s heart knows no bounds.
I’ve also seen this practice of showing up unfold in group form as well. Every other Wednesday night, I join a Zoom call with women I met in the rooms of recovery. We call it “Wise Woman Wednesdays.” Our gathering was started after someone close to us died by suicide. That kind of loss carves something open in you, makes life feel more fragile and more precious, and it teaches you how urgently we need each other. We have to show up for each other to check in, stay close, and keep reminding one another that we do not have to carry this alone, even in our darkest hours.
And because this was modeled for me, I was able to show up for Nikki in this way this weekend. Not with fanfare or a big announcement. Just with presence. Just by being there in the gap between the service and the celebration, helping in the ways that mattered: taking pictures, holding details, staying close, making room for her to be fully there with her daughter instead of worrying about everything else.
Because aren’t the mamas always the ones taking the pictures? And aren’t we always the ones making sure it all gets done, while quietly disappearing from the moment itself?
Sometimes what a woman needs most is not someone asking, “Do you need help?” Sometimes she needs someone who can see the answer before she says it and step in anyway.
What friendship can be
This is what I love about friendship with women when it is healthy, mutual, and rooted in real care: it can become a place where we borrow strength from each other. And we do not have to wait for a crisis or an event to be useful to one another. We can bring the meal, hold the baby, take the photo, walk beside the person while she finishes the impossible list of things. We can show up without requiring a whole explanation with a love that is not only practical but profound.
I think women need to stop asking each other if we need help and just…..start showing up.
Most women raised in our culture need help but do not know how to ask. And if recovery has taught me anything, it is that we heal in relationships. We stay sober in a relationship. We become more honest, more grounded, and more ourselves in a relationship.
This truth is revealed in the everyday, often invisible spaces where we find women quietly saying to one another: I see you, and I will not leave you to carry this alone.
That, to me, is one of the loveliest things women can do for each other. Not fix everything or make everything easy.
Just show up.
Is there anyone who has shown up for you in your life in a way that you will never forget? Tell me in the comments, or even tag them here!
