With all that has happened with the kids losing their home and family pet to the house fire. I have discovered that through this I am good at taking charge. I can see what needs to be done, and delegate it. However, reverse the roles, and make me a doer and I’m a mess.
People started coming to me in front of my daughter’s home with bags of clothes. I had asked my daughter for everyone’s sizes and gave it to a neighbor who apparently posted it on a neighborhood forum. At first, I put the donation in my van, and then I asked a neighbor who had spread the word if he would be the collection area. Having bags in my van felt overwhelming to me. I asked him if he had room in his garage to sort the clothes out. If he would throw out what he deemed not to be good, and to sort by size and gender. Then, all my kids had to do was to go to their home and shop. This is exactly what happened.
After doing so many things like culling through the debris, and finding a CPAP machine for my son -in law and talking to insurance, and boarding up a house and trying to come to terms with this disaster, my kids were able to visit their friends and go through all of the clothes. My daughter said that surprisingly someone donated some of the same clothes that were in her closet in her very size. Both of the kids said they had a lot of clothes that were nicer than what they had previously owned. I call this type of experiences a God thing. They came back to my home with trash bags and bins filled with clothes. My job was to go to Target and buy hangers. I was obsessed with hangers. My kids may not own a stitch of clothes from before February but whatever they now own would be hung up. I know my daughter loves hangers as well. I did this because I knew it was a way for her to feel some normalcy. I purchased blue hangers for her and grey for him and little pink ones for my granddaughter. I must say, walking through Target felt eerily similar to walking around after my mother passed away. It was if you walk with this fog and grief and can not believe that everyone was just “doing life.” I broke down twice in Target. In hindsight, I realized I was strong around the kids. Being away from them it hit me, and I was a mess, but by God, I had hangers for my kids.
Hanging On
Pusche