Well maybe it’s not the big payback. A better title might be – paying it backwards.
I have been given the opportunity to return a favor to a friend who was very good to me when I was in college. She took me in when I had nowhere to go. She gave me food when I was hungry. In the ensuing years, our lives took different directions. I had children and got married. She was single. I lived the city life, she lived the suburban dream.
Our contact has been infrequent. Some years there was no contact at all. Life happens.
Recently, a closer friend of hers, informed her network that she was in need. Her father, with whom she lives, had a rapid decline in physical health and mental acuity. She’s a single child and her mother passed a few years back. Determined to keep him at home, she needs help and relief for the hours when the home worker is not there.
Thanks to modern technology a cadre of friends, church members, colleagues, etc., have formed a community of care, using the website: Lotsa Helping Hands.
As the website explains:
We created Lotsa Helping Hands to answer the question what can I do to help?Lotsa Helping Hands is a lifeline. It is a free, private, web-based community that allows the coordination of activities and management of volunteers with a group calendar.
I am delighted to be able to be part of the community that surrounds my friend in her time of me as she helped me so very long ago when we were young. At that time, her head was clearly on her shoulders and mine was drifting in la-la land. I finally landed.
Like life does, we have circled back into each others’ orbs…reconnected. This connection provides a preview of what lies ahead for each of us if we live long enough. I hope we have the love, time and helping hands of others to help us in our time of need.