It started here….

It started here on this porch. The thoughts of community and taking care of the people you love and those you don’t even know you will love yet.

I remember from a young age when this porch was really just an enclosed entryway with a wood stove, a porch swing, and an aging grandpa rocking away the hours while stoking the stove. My people take care of their people!

My dad, the youngest of 15, and his siblings built an apartment connected to our family home so my grandfather could live comfortably surrounded by family in his advancing years. It wasn’t always easy to find consensus with so many siblings. They somehow managed and I believe were able to take care of him the best they could until his passing. There was another grandpa who lived there afterward. The father of a dear friend and neighbor, who wanted to be close by to help care for him as he aged and passed. That tiny apartment was the perfect spot. Next, these small rooms became a tiny home when I became a young mom welcoming a sweet tiny baby girl. Once again my people showed me, that we take care of our people.

In the way that my parents took care of the sick and the newly born, they took people in for community and fellowship. They offered friendship, endless cups of coffee and homemade treats to those who came to the porch or kitchen table. Counseled and debated serious topics and told and retold stories and memories of years past.

This is where it started for me, the pull to do something a bit bigger. Not bigger in that I am going to build sky scrapers, bigger in that the things I really want to do have more depth and meaning than a perfectly appointed graph or spreadsheet (although I love both). Bigger in a way that I can make things a little bit easier. Grab the groceries and cut the vegetables so you can get to the nursing home to visit grandma or clean the house and change the sheets so there is a little bit of time left at the end of the day to make a call or visit a friend. I can also make the graph and prep the spreadsheets and expenses for you so you can make it to the basketball game and not have to work over the weekend!

What can I do to help? Where are you stretched a little thin?