For three years I refused every offer of help with my son, because I believed needing help meant I was failing him. The turning point was my own body staging a protest: I got sick, and the world kept spinning without me running it. A neighbor started taking Saturday afternoons, and I used them to do nothing heroic, just rest and a long shower. I came back on Sundays as a better mother. Now I tell every exhausted caretaker I meet: accepting help is not a withdrawal from your love. It is the maintenance that keeps the love running.
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