Always There To Help

Michelle Schneider

3 years ago

help One thing I absolutely love about my parents is that they are ALWAYS there to help me. In any way, shape or form. As long as I can remember… I’ve been spoiled with this fact.

I remember in high school, after receiving my own car (see my previous post about the little red hornet), dad would take each car to the filling station on Friday and fill it up for the week. I never had to worry about running out of gas while dad was around.

When I was in college in the dorms, mom and dad came up to Eau Claire and made my dorm rooms into better homes and gardens so that I would enjoy my environment. Dad made bunk beds and carpeted my rooms, while mom decorated every spare inch, from recovering bulletin boards and chairs to painting and hanging curtains. Once I moved off campus, mom and the grandmas would come up and take the weekend to repaint cupboards and bedrooms and again, decorate everything that would stand still so I wouldn’t feel so homesick.

Once I got married, the entire family got to take part in the decorating. For my first house, Lisa, mom, dad and the grandmas would come to New Berlin every weekend for 2 solid months and paint every inch of the new place. We didn’t even rent hotel rooms or anything. They would just paint till they dropped and they slept on the floor at the new house.

When the kids started coming, my mom and dad were the ones I looked to for babysitting. My kids never had a babysitter from outside the family. I always knew that as long as mom wasn’t busy, she wouldn’t hesitate to watch the kids.

Once I moved back to Beaver Dam, the kids spent a lot more time with mom and dad. There were some weekends that I’d call mom to see if my kids were ever going to come home. Mom actually made a fort in the attic for the kids to play in and dad would sometimes take the boys into the workroom to build projects.

Now that I’m divorced, I can still count on mom and dad for help. If my boys don’t get to it soon enough, I’ll find dad out snow-blowing my sidewalk and driveway. If I need something painted or redecorated, mom is there in a heartbeat. When I was trying to create magic in the kids’ bathroom, mom was only too happy to create the wallpaper for me and proceeded to put it up.

At this point, we are in the process of remodeling my basement and mom and dad are once again my main source of help. I don’t know what I would do without mom and dad there to motivate me, support me and provide their wisdom. I’ve always felt immensely grateful that I could count on them for anything. I can only hope that my kids feel as lucky to have me for a mom as I feel about my mom and dad.