12/02/2023
Giving Back Day 1: Too much.
Her coworker says to her…why are you crying?
My breasts hurt. I think my baby must be hungry. But I had to leave her, and her brother, in the Philippines and come back home to work.
Tears are just falling.
Her baby girl is only three months old. Her son is three and a half.
You had to leave your children in a different country, why?
What the actual? What?
I need to work.
My husband is too sick now to care for them. I need to work because we need the money, and the benefit plan, to cover his medicine.
Ok. This cannot be real?
This story stuns me so hard that I cannot even comprehend or imagine any of it.
But it is happening.
They were brought forward to us by a co-worker who reached out to us. She told us about the day this young mother showed up at work in tears.
This family is not only in a crisis, they seemed to be drowning right before my eyes when we went to meet them in person.
The children were gone for 12 months.
When they did come home (6 months ago), it was quickly apparent that the little boy was not speaking, at all.
He is now in school and is on an eighteen month wait list for an assessment on autism.
The little girl will absolutely not let go of her Momma because of pure survival instinct…she just lost the grandmother who, as far as she ever knew, was her only caregiver and she is clinging to her mom now in fear of losing her as well.
We are sitting in the basement suite getting to know them.
There is no sunlight.
The bedroom has a window that is covered, but water is leaking all the way down the wall. There is no venting for the stove. No working electricity for a lightbulb in the bedroom.
The basement suite, which is completely illegal, is damp and full of mold.
All four of them sleep in one room.
There is another tenant in the next bedroom.
There is one bathroom.
No toilet paper. No baby wipes.
The broom is made of an old, cut off, hockey stick with packing tape holding the bristles to the stick. There is one, really old, pot in the cupboard for cooking.
The chair is held together with duct tape.
Looking around, it’s incomprehensible to me.
Our home is full of sunlight.
How did this happen?
Dad is in kidney failure.
That is what has essentially buried them as he can no longer work. He’s on dialyses three times per week and then he was so sick after each appointment that work became impossible.
I don’t know anything about kidneys. Can you tell me how this happened? Is it genetic?
No Ma’am. I did it to myself. I didn’t know. I was working a full day shift, and then a full night shift. On the weekend I had two side jobs. For years.
My blood pressure went so high that it ruined my kidneys.
So, you have basically worked yourself into this condition?
Yes, Ma’am.
I am stunned, again.
You came to our country ten years ago...and worked so hard to keep up that you have basically ruined your health.
OK, we would like to help you. Can you let me know what is most concerning to you right now?
Yes, Ma’am. I am scared that if the hospital calls me in for a transplant…that I won’t be able to get there in time. I am not allowed to drive to my own transplant, and my wife doesn’t drive.
I smile in astonishment.
This is your biggest worry?
Here is my cell number. Call me if you get the call. I know about five hundred people that would drop EVERYTHING to drive you into your transplant operation.
Well…two weeks later, the TRANSPLANTCALL came through!!
I was feeling pretty excited to be driving him down the highway to the hospital. He had one hour to get there. I remember looking around at all of the cars driving alongside us, wondering where they were going. How surreal it would be if they all knew where we were heading at that very moment?
Wait.
The family of this donor could be on this highway right now too.
The weight their hearts must be carrying right now settles on the both of us.
This was two weeks ago.
Someone gave this most precious gift to this man. We will be forever thankful for this gift of life.
On the drive, Dad was so worried about his wife. She has no driver’s license and can’t get to work. His son won’t be able to get to school. His daughter will have no childcare…while he is recovering in the hospital for the two weeks.
Oh, man. This just got so real.
Don’t worry!! We will figure it out…you just go in an get yourself this huge surgery, and work on getting better.
So now…our team has been picking up the little guy and driving him to school and back every day. I was carrying him in the school office the very first day wondering what the heck I had just got myself into…the staff found us and were also wondering how I ended up with this little guy. It’s a long story lol!
We’ve met his teachers; they love him so much! They are assisting us with meetings and we are going to look into the private testing costs to get his diagnoses sooner so that he can get more help at home with speech therapy, physical therapy, and respite care.
OK, so now. We are focusing on this family in every way. Our staff have completely stepped up and they are babysitting while Mom is working her evening shift as a school janitor.
I reach out to the landlords to chat about fixing a few things and it becomes a bit…heated. I am actually passionately upset (pi$$ed off) about how terrible the whole living situation was. We are offering help but it didn’t go as planned…and the family was given 1 month notice to move out.
Oh s**t.
Pivot.
We spent the afternoon on the computer and found them a new apartment. One full of windows, bathrooms, and bedrooms. It’s safe and clean.
Dad will heal here.
The family will pay the same rent that they were paying in the basement, and we will pay the remaining top-up for the next year while Dad is healing. It can take up to 11 months to heal from this transplant.
The kids will have space to move. Our shopping teams hit up IKEA and purchased new beds, bedding, towels, toys, and everything in between…including a little Christmas tree with gifts wrapped under it.
New mattresses. Dad was sleeping on the box spring of their bed with a small foam on top…he had given the mattress top to the floor for his kids to sleep on.
It’s a lot, right?
This family…their work ethic, kindness, and thankfulness, is humbling.
They have no family here and it’s hard to build a huge friendship of support when you are working so many hours.
We are looking into getting Grandma here to help with childcare…but for now we just trying to help them keep treading water.
We will try and look into daycare options soon.
Momma is doing truly the most amazing job with the load that she carries on her shoulders. Dad texts me every day to ask how I am doing and to tell me how thankful he is for what we are doing.
This family is one of our own. They were living just steps away from our shop. I think that is another thing that is so heavy…how can we being doing so well but just a block from us, a family is hurting so badly that they don’t even know where to go for help.
We are grateful to you, our customers, because it is your determination to support us that has, in turn, allowed us to help this family.
Thank you!!
Today we had a team of 28 friends come in to help set up all the new furniture, wash the new bedding, fill the fridge with food, and fill the closets with a few new clothes.
Our staff brought Dad home from the hospital and he and his wife were able to walk in to their very first apartment full of new items…and full of sunlight ❤️
Merry Christmas ❤️
~ Amanda & Trevor Wilhauk
If you would like to help out this family…they could really use a few of the larger (heavy to carry home) items such as diapers (size 3, size 5), wipes, toilet paper, laundry detergents, Superstore gift cards ❤️
They could, honestly, really use some help with their share of the rent too. If you would like to bring in cash, or send an EMT ([email protected]) we will put this towards their rent costs while Dad is healing ❤️
And, their van sounds like it’s about to fall apart.
