In the early 90s, my aunt, who had three young children, got pregnant with twins.
She didn’t have hyperemesis, but she was, understandably, having a rough time.
So for most of her pregnancy, my sister and I went over for the day once a week to help clean and do laundry and childcare.
(A thing made possible by our flexible homeschool schedule.)
After the twins were born, we continued to go once a week for quite a while, eventually switching to every other week as the twins grew into preschoolers.
Recently, I was talking about this with my cousin (one of the twins, now a mom herself!), and she asked me if my sister and I ever got burnt out from helping for so long.
Interestingly, I don’t ever remember feeling tired or resentful about helping. It was obvious that there was a need, and we had skills that could meet that need; I just remember being glad to help.
Plus, I got to see my little cousins, including the babies once they were born.
So, honestly, I enjoyed helping out.
Which is the happiest way to serve others, I think; when there’s an intersection between a need and an enjoyable skill set, that’s a match made in heaven!
That’s a good way to avoid burnout, too. If you asked me to go to someone’s house once a week for two years to do math tutoring, I would get tired of that pretty fast.
But cleaning, organizing, folding laundry, and holding babies?
I can obviously do that for quite some time. 😉
I volunteered at a food bank for 10 yrs, most of them with my son. He was 10 when we started & stopped around 19 when he got his first job. We made some of the best friends, all older people who loved my son like grandparents.
But most of the service I’ve done has been hard. I helped care for my parents & in-laws. The first time when I was 15 & my dad became paralized. He lived at home this way until he died when I was 17. Then again with my mom when I was in my 30s, homeschooling, ect. I tried to go to her senior apartment every day but I did all her laundry, errands, dr app. ect. We had a housekeeper come in thankfully. There were good things about caring for parents but over all it was pretty hard & painful.
I never had time or energy to do something long term for friends but I have helped friends clean out houses after the death of a parent or do personal care (washing hair, bathing) after surgeries.
My friend lost her husband almost 4 years ago. She has no family in our town, her family is several hours away. We have had dinner together every Monday since the husbands passing. COVID-19 has changed that a bit…we sat outside in spring/summer and most of fall. Not sure what will happen in Winter.
I bet your aunt saw you as angels every time you went over.
That picture of you and your sister with the babies is so cute.
When I was a in middle school, my mom became aware of an elderly lady from our church who needed help cleaning her house. She was widowed and had no children, and no family anywhere, really. So my older sister, who was I think 17 at the time and so could drive, went over once a week to clean the lady’s (tiny) house. And also sit with her and eat not-entirely-cooked frozen pizza and talk with her. 🙂 When my sister left for college, I took her place. After I left for college, my mom continued helping her until she died just about a year or so later. All together, my family cleaned Ms. Tonyan’s house for at least five years.
We did foster care for male teenaged sex offenders for 15 years. We only took one at a time because they were each on sight-and-sound release, meaning they could not be in homes with other kids and we had to provide close supervision. Few people were willing to take these placements so after we did the first one successfully, we were never without a child. They were longer term placements, so we were not constantly teaching a new arrival the rules and rhythms in your home, which made it easier. Also, to a kid each one had been horribly sexually abused as children, sometimes even in infancy, so while what they did as teens may have been horrible, it was easier to have compassion for them. I remember one of them saying, “Are all you nice people so boring?” Coming from homes of chaos and secrets, it did seem boring to have predictability in routine and in the personalities of your caretakers, so I took it as a compliment and used it as the opening for my favorite lecture on predictability being the basis for trust and trust being the basis for honest relationships…
Thank you. Thank you for choosing and doing this hard work.
That’s probably the most difficult, challenging, and life-altering “service” anyone could do, I think. You helped hundreds or thousands indirectly.
Thank you for doing this work. I am in awe. God bless you both and God bless and care for the young men whom you fostered.
That is true charity and you are wonderful. Just so humbled by your example.
These are lovely stories, and I hope there are more. Lovely pictures, too! Can we see the grown-up twins with you and your sister holding them like they do in Awkward Family Pictures? (Even though yours aren’t awkward! I just like the re-creations.
I love the babies’ expressions and how they are so consistent between the two pics.