Outpouring of love

Outpouring of Love

As news of my Dad's death spread in our community, many of the people that he had impacted in his life came forward wanting to help in any way. How do you answer that, though? Everyone says 'let me know how I can help'. Well, the only thing that I could think was...there is nothing you can do...I just want my Dad back. But I realize that is not a fair answer, everyone just wants to help. But its still a difficult question to answer. So most people just took it upon themselves to organize it on their own.

I have never experienced such an amazing outpouring of love. We had people bringing food to the house constantly. From full meals to staple items to junk food. (That person was our hero! Sometimes you just need the comfort of chips and candy...) People even brought paper goods like plates, cups and even toilet paper. We didn't have to think about anything or request anything. Items just kept pouring in constant. Lucky my Mom has a deep freezer...she was having to freeze so much of it. It was so nice and thoughtful and extremely helpful.

People even brought or sent money and gift cards. I found this a strange thing to do, but quite a few people did this. My former boss even sent a Starbucks gift card with his sympathy card. Don't get me wrong, it was super nice and thoughtful, but still, seems weird. Along those lines, though, the coworkers (roughly 700 people) at my Dad's work of 36 years, MotivePower, rallied together and collected money to help our family with the funeral expenses in the form of a Hardship Fund. The company matched the contributions above 100% so that they were paying the tax for my Mom. This contribution, with the company match ended up being $6,800! It is mind boggling how huge that is! It covered all but $1500 of the funeral costs. I am still in awe of the employees' willingness to help not only from their wallets, but they also brought food to our family, attended the funeral and visited with us at the hospital and our home.

My Mom has continued to receive these types of contributions in the months following. Some sweet anonymous soul has been coming by to shovel her driveway when it snows. She has had people inviting her to go to different events that my Dad would have accompanied her to so that she can go without feeling alone. Different people have been coming by to mow the lawn and help with the yard work (my parents have 3/4 of an acre) when its not covered in snow. One of my parents' friends owns a roofing business of some sort, and has donated his time and materials to fix the leak that recently developed in her roof. While we were there for the funeral, we found out that the bath tub in one of the two bathrooms has been leaking without my parents' knowledge, so another person that owns a flooring business has donated their time and materials to fix the floor. And to top it off, another friend has offered to repaint her whole house once the winter weather subsides.

It is so touching and heartwarming...and also very hard to wrap my mind around sometimes. I am constantly amazed at the show of love from people and it seems that a simple 'Thank you' is never enough.