“I think the girl who is able to earn her own living and pay her own way should be as happy as anybody on earth.” – Susan B. Anthony

Today, I’m going to talk about my daughter.

In many regards, she’s a pretty typical four year old girl – at least judging by her peers. She likes to play dress-up – in fact, we have a dress-up tub in our basement just for her. Her favorite place on our property is the sandbox, and the part about winter that she hates is that she really can’t play in that sandbox. She loves to sing and dance, and we can rarely drive more than two minutes without her bursting into song in the back seat. Her favorite toys are building blocks, from which she can build giant towers and crazy sculptures. She seems to believe that a day isn’t complete without an art project, preferably one that involves paper and glue and markers and pens and clay.

Of our three children, she’s often the one I have the hardest time relating to. I grew up in a household that held nothing but boys. All I have is brothers, and all of their friends and most of my friends growing up were boys. The only children close to my age that lived near us were boys. I’m used to the “boy” experience and I understand how boys respond to most situations. The behavior of my oldest child and my youngest child – both boys – makes sense to me based on my own experiences.

My daughter is a bit of a different story. I find myself often watching how she acts more than the other two simply because she often reacts and does things in ways that I don’t expect. She’s a beautiful enigma to me at many times.

After her fourth birthday, we started giving her an allowance, just like her older brother. They both use Money Savvy Pigs and divide up the small weekly allowance (paid in quarters) among the slots.

My oldest son has always taken the “invest” slot in the bank for granted. He puts the minimum amount of quarters into that slot and, although he occasionally asks about it, he actually focuses more on the “save” and “donate” slots. He’s not much of an impulse spender, as he’s already been able to save up for a few very expensive items, and he’s proud to be saving his nickels and dimes for Jump for Joel.

My daughter, on the other hand, was immediately curious about that “invest” slot. What will we do with that money? Will we spend it? What does “I-N-V-E-S-T” mean?

I told her that the money in that slot was for saving for things when she was much older, like college or a car or something like that. We talked a little bit about how many quarters would be in that slot by the time she was sixteen.

Then, I set the hook. “You know, the money in that slot has the power to grow on its own.”

Her eyes lit up. I explained that we could take that money to a bank and put it in a savings account, and for every four quarters she left in there for a while, the bank would give her a penny. I mentioned that there were other things you can invest in where you might even earn more than that, but you might also lose some money, too.

She was fascinated. She wanted to start “invess-TING” right now. Right now.

Before I had a daughter, I didn’t know what to expect. Now I do. This girl is a thoughtful, intelligent, quick-witted, vibrant person who deserves every chance in the world to take it all by storm. She has all the ability in the world and a skill set that is different from but at least equal to that of her siblings.

When I hear that there is still a pay discrepancy between genders, I shudder. She’s growing the passion and skills needed to take on practically any job thrown before her, so why should she not receive equal pay?

When I see that an opportunity discrepancy still exists (whether in fact or in perception), I shake my head. She’s incredibly capable of taking on impressive challenges, even at her young age. Why shouldn’t she get that opportunity as she reaches adulthood?

One of the personal goals that Sarah and I have for our children is to ensure that they can follow any educational path after high school that they wish and they won’t be limited by money or economic opportunity. Part of achieving that goal is to make sure that they have every skill and every piece of knowledge that we can give to them as they grow up. I want every single one of them to swing for the fences, and the biggest thing I hope for is that they’re each judged by and are given opportunities by the level of their skills and the content of their character, not by their gender.

How do we do that? We have well-funded 529s for each of them. We spend a lot of time engaging with them on educational endeavors – a trip to the Science Center of Iowa is a family event, for example, and we’re constantly doing writing activities and math activities and science experiments together as a family. In contrast to a lot of what we see around us, we’re encouraging our children to take control of tasks and projects and assert their independence. For example, our six year old can find his clothes, take a shower, get himself dressed, brush his teeth, pack his backpack, and get out to the bus stop in the morning (I’m around to converse with him, but he does this himself).

This little girl (and her two siblings) deserves every opportunity in the world, and it’s our job to make sure they have every tool we can give them to grab ahold of those opportunities and run wild with them. Doing that is a financial commitment and a time commitment and an energy and patience commitment, but it’s one that has giant rewards: independently functioning and thinking adults who can make a positive impact in the world.

That, to me, is “invess-TING” at its finest.

For the past month, my family and I had been looking forward to traveling to the Chicago area. We were going to stay for four days with my cousin (who I adore) and her children (which my children adore). We had planned on going into the city to Taste of Chicago and to the Art Institute of Chicago as well as to a great fireworks display.

On Friday morning, my oldest son woke up quite ill. We took him to the doctor and he had strep throat. Trip cancelled.

All of us were disappointed, to say the least. My son was fairly miserable on Friday, so we had a quiet day around the house. On Saturday, he felt better and by mid-afternoon he asked us when we were leaving to go to Chicago. When we told him that the trip was off, he broke down in tears, as you might expect from a five year old who just lost a trip he’d been looking forward to for a month.

The first reaction my wife and I had was to do something splurge-y to replace the trip. What sort of big, fun thing could we do to replace the disappointment of losing our trip?

After we thought about it for a bit, though, we realized that what we were missing was the fun of the trip, not the splurge of the trip, so we spent the rest of the weekend with that idea fully in mind.

We had a movie marathon with the lights turned down low and bowls of popcorn for everyone (so that the child with strep wouldn’t be sharing his germs with others).

We got some dyes out of the art kit and made tie-dyed shirts for the entire family.

We hooked up the grass sprinkler to the water hose on a warm afternoon late in the weekend.

We filled up our inflatable kid pool that day, too.

We played several elaborate games.

We made giant castles out of Legos and Magna-Tiles, too.

We made everyone’s favorite meals out of the foods we had on hand (and got everyone except for the sick child involved in the cooking).

When our sick child was feeling well, we went on a bicycle ride through our neighborhood.

In the evenings, my wife and I stayed up late – not cleaning, as is often the case, but playing games with each other and sitting on the deck together sipping wine using a bottle we’d had in the cupboard for a while.

When we took the children to visit their grandparents late on Monday (as was the plan before the illness – we were going to drop them off in the middle of our return trip from Chicago), we realized that even though we had all missed out on a trip we had been really looking forward to, we still managed to have a very fun weekend anyway without splurging on things to “take the edge off” of our disappointment.

When you miss out on something fun that you’ve been looking forward to, don’t just replace that fun with stuff. Instead, replace that fun with some other flavor of fun. It’s a lot cheaper and makes a lot more sense.

A few days ago, Sarah and I went out to dinner with another couple that we’ve been friends with for a long time – we’ve actually known the female in the couple for almost two decades. They live several hours away from us and we don’t get to see them terribly often, but we make it a point to see them at least a few times a year.

At that dinner, the couple asked Sarah and I if they could name us as guardians for their children in their will. We told them that we would have to give the decision some serious thought and discussion, and unsurprisingly it’s been a significant topic of discussion between Sarah and myself over the past few days.

Because this is an issue that other families are sometimes faced with, I thought I’d share some of our thought process with you with regards to this decision. I should point out that we haven’t made a final decision yet.

As is usually the case, we’ve made a list of reasons why we should do this, along with a list of reasons why we shouldn’t do this.

Why We Should Do It
The biggest reason is that their children will really need us if they lose their parents. We may be the best option they have for a stable life that offers some degree of continuity with their life with their parents. To me, this is the biggest reason for us to do this.

There’s also the consideration that it would take a weight off of the minds of our friends right now. As their family has grown, their concerns about child guardianship has grown as well. The simple knowledge that their children would be in a stable home if they were to pass would take some stress off of their shoulders.

We also would not have significant financial concerns, as they have strong life insurance policies and would change them to have us as secondary beneficiaries. According to my math, the amount received would actually exceed the amount needed to continue raising their children in their stead. If we properly used the money received from the insurance, we would be able to provide for the new children fairly well.

Why We Shouldn’t Do It
The big reason against doing this is that we’re unsure of our capacity to raise that many children. This would suddenly add several children on top of the three we already have, and frankly Sarah and I are unsure that we would be able to do this and still give each of those children the love and support they would need.

This really breaks down into three main “sub-concerns.”

First, would we be able to continue to be great parents for our own children? Our time would be spread more thinly and we would have less time for one-on-one interaction with our own children if more were suddenly introduced.

Second, would we be able to also be great parents for the new children? This is similar to the above concern, of course, but it’s also an issue when we compare ourselves to other potential outcomes for these children. With that many children under one roof, are we really the best option for them?

Finally, would we be able to have a functional and satisfying marriage with that many children? There are times where three children puts our marriage under stress. What would we do with several more children?

Clearly, we would have to adjust some significant portions of our life if this occurred. Sarah may return to a stay-at-home mom status, for example, and I may have to find some assistance with maintaining The Simple Dollar.

This is one of those moments in life where there is no clear “right” choice. There are two choices, each with good and bad elements to them, and each with serious consequences. Such decisions should never be taken lightly.

I’ll let you know when we make up our mind.

One of the most common questions I get is whether or not a person should cosign on someone else’s loan – a car loan, a student loan, or so on.

I have a single response that I always give to this type of question:

You should only co-sign a loan that you’re perfectly happy paying off yourself.

If you would be unhappy with being forced to pay for the loan yourself, then you should not be cosigning that loan.

Here’s why.

First, the reason a lender wants a cosigner on a loan is because they believe that the person they’re lending to has a high likelihood of not paying back the loan. Usually, a person that needs a co-signer is a person with poor credit or, in some cases, a person with no credit history at all. This means that either they’ve never dealt with the ins and outs of paying a loan back before or they’ve attempted it and failed to pay back their obligations.

Second, if that person who the bank has deemed untrustworthy proves the bank to be correct, you’re left holding the bag. Co-signing isn’t just a way to help a friend. It essentially means that you’re hung with the debt if the primary signer decides not to go through with actually repaying the debt.

Third, when you turn a personal relationship into a financial one, you introduce a lot of strain in the personal relationship. If they default on this loan, what will that do to your relationship? It will be very, very hard for the two of you to be as close as you once were.

These three things together make for a dangerous mix. They put your finances at significant risk without any direct benefit to you. You’re betting that someone is reliable when someone else who is not involved has looked at the evidence without emotions clouding their judgment and came to the opposite conclusion.

To put it simply, you’re saying, “Sure, I’ll take on more risk than the bank.” You know, those paragons of financial stability who were quite willing to hand out adjustable rate mortgages like candy and almost tanked the United States economy.

“But I really want to help!” This is often the reason that people use to talk themselves into such large amounts of risk. The person asking for their help is someone who they genuinely want to help and so they let their emotions cloud their judgment and sign away.

Here’s the thing: you can usually help quite a lot without signing on the dotted line.

Offer resources that you can give them. If you want to financially help someone, don’t do it in a way that puts you at risk and don’t enter into a financial arrangement with them that could damage your relationship. Instead, make it a gift. Give them some cash to buy a beater to get back and forth to work or to put a deposit on an apartment. Let them live in your spare room for a few months. If they want to pay you back, let them, but make it clear that you don’t expect repayment.

Offer intangibles. Invest your time in them by driving them to job interviews or taking them around to buy a car. Invest your contacts in them by calling someone you know who can help them get a job. Listen to what they’re talking about and going through and offer your advice and whatever else you can offer.

In other words, offer all the help you can without introducing unnecessary risk into your life. Don’t co-sign, but offer help in every other way you can.

From my perspective, there is one exception to this. I think that the intangibles related to a parent co-signing on a student loan for their freshly graduated child likely add up to more than the risk of signing such loans. In that case, a parent is often a fairly good judge of the situation and if they view the risk of co-signing in this situation as acceptable, it seems to me to simply be an extension of the risks of parenthood.

One common question I’m asked a lot is how we actually balance our work lives and our family lives. Barb sums it up best:

How do you do it? You write tons and tons of stuff for The Simple Dollar, your wife works a full time job, you seem to have tons of time available for your kids, you read quite a bit, and you also seem to have a somewhat active social life. How do you do it? Do you not sleep?

There are a handful of tricks to making this all work. I’ll outline several, but I’ll start with the big one.

The line between work and family is pretty blurry at our house.
As I’ve mentioned before, I set aside a block of time each day to spend with the kids – and my wife does the same. This block usually goes from about 5:30 in the evening until 8:30 in the evening, with the last half-hour or so involving one of us putting the kids to bed while the other one does something else.

Outside of that, the lines between work and family are really blurry at our home. We’ll engage in family activities and in the middle, I’ll yank out my pocket notebook and jot down some notes. I’ll read books for review for The Simple Dollar in the late evenings when my wife is enjoying a piece of meaty fiction. My wife (who is a teacher) will grade papers on the way to an activity while I’m driving, or I’ll gather notes while she’s driving. Sometimes she even helps out with background tasks for The Simple Dollar, brainstorming ideas, correcting posts, and even helping with writing tasks here and there.

It’s not uncommon for us to spend a rainy Saturday afternoon watching a movie in the family room. The kids will choose a Pixar movie we’ve seen a dozen times and my wife and I will fire up our laptops, hers to record some grades and mine to answer some emails.

It doesn’t feel intrusive – at least not to me – because I enjoy the work so much. I love to write. I love to communicate with readers (in fact, I love it so much that I often get behind simply because I want to respond to as many emails as I can). It just feels – most of the time – like just another enjoyable thing to do in my life.

During the school year, the kids do go to daycare, a decision we put a lot of thought into before we chose it. The biggest reason, actually, was for the kids themselves – there are cognitive benefits and health benefits to such attendance. That doesn’t mean that we dump them at the door and run – I often spend days with them, taking them to the Science Center of Iowa or to the library or to the park – but I do try to maximize the time they’re at daycare, doing tasks that they can’t participate in (my work) or would greatly hinder.

The end result of all of this is that my children get my undivided attention vastly more than they did when I was working a full time job. When I had work intruding on my life then, I was either out of the house or mentally distracted when I should have been spending time with them. Now, when they need me and something work-related is on my mind, I have the freedom to slam the door on work whenever I choose. Plus, because I enjoy my work, I also have the freedom to pick it up whenever time allows without hating how it’s interfering with what I want to do – it is what I want to do.

We own one television – and it’s rarely on.
In the last month, the television’s primary use has been twofold. It’s kept us up to date with local storm coverage (since we’ve had some awful weather as of late) and it’s provided the source of our “family movie night,” where all four of us (once a week or so) watch a movie together. Other than that, I think it’s been on roughly two hours (to watch True Blood).

That’s it. The only television we own is down in the basement, and we simply don’t go down there that often. We’re too busy doing other things that we enjoy – activities that often involve active interaction with our children (like drawing pictures or building a giant model railroad).

We do lots of household chores together as a family.
We cook meals together. We clean together. We work on art projects together. We wrap presents together. We do dishes together.

Virtually any task that the children can possibly participate in is done in a social fashion. Everyone gets more out of it if we work together. Sure, there might be minor setbacks when the children get involved, but they offer a lot of help, too. Even our twenty one month old daughter can scrape plates and put them in the dishwasher (seriously) and our three year old loves stirring cookie batter.

The more things like this that we do together as a family, the tighter we bond and the more real world skills our kids have. Doing things this way turns household chores into opportunities for family bonding – and often gets things done just as fast, if not faster.

Many of our friends are also parents.
If you’re friends with parents that have children of a similar age, they’re much more understanding about things like taking kids to the bathroom or washing their hands. They’re also much more likely to be helpful when you need a hand, and you have a lot of experiences and advice worth sharing.

Here’s a perfect example. My wife had four bridesmaids at our wedding – two of them were her sisters and the other two were long-time friends. Today, one of those friends has a son that’s literally one day younger than our own, while the other has a daughter in between the ages of our kids and an infant son. The children have become part of the social bonds tying them all together.

Thus, our roles as parents and as social creatures overlap.

We choose enriching things for our relaxation time.
So when do we relax? Almost every evening, my wife and I spend some time unwinding. That time, though, is often spent reading or playing a game that requires some thinking. Last night, we both read for an hour and a half, side by side, before bed. The night before that, we played Dominion over a bottle of wine.

In short, we make an effort to keep our minds “on” as much as possible during the day.

Turning my mind “off” is done in a very focused way.
Obviously, though, being “on” all the time isn’t the best thing, so I have what I think of as an extremely focused “off” time each day. I meditate/pray for about twenty minutes – I clear my mind and do a few very basic relaxation techniques. Often, if I do this later in the day, I find myself hugely mentally refreshed for the evening instead of burnt out after a lot of work.

I used to try to do something like this during my commute, but it never really worked well, so eventually I settled on meditating/praying right when I got home. It’s a late afternoon tradition for me that I’ve used ever since – and it makes a huge difference in my energy and alertness in the evenings.

Doing these things – blending work and parenting and play, meditating, socializing with other parents, and engaging in activities that are usually mentally enriching – has been invaluable for juggling all the roles we have without needing to shell out the cash to bring in extra help (like a housecleaner, for example).

Whenever Mother’s Day rolls around (and it’s just about here), people seem to congregate into two camps on the issue.

First, there’s the celebrate your mother camp – the people who feel that Mother’s Day is a perfect opportunity to show your mother that you care for her, either through action or through a gift. On the other side of that coin is the Mother’s Day is a day invented by the greeting card industry group, those who feel that the entire concept of a “mother’s day” is just an excuse for consumerism.

To tell the truth, I agree with both sides of the issue. Mother’s Day may be a contrived invention, but the reason behind it is one I wholeheartedly agree with – it’s always worthwhile to celebrate our mothers.

The solution is simple: the best way to celebrate your mother isn’t by waiting until a particular day and celebrating it with consumerism. Instead, find ways to show your mother that you truly care – and those ways rarely involve heading to the store and buying greeting cards and other things. Here are eight things to try, whether or not you’re waiting until May 10 to celebrate it or you want to treat every day as Mother’s Day.

Apologize. If there is a rift between you and your mother, there is simply nothing better you can do than apologize. Before you do, though, take to heart what it means to truly apologize. Spend some time really reflecting on the rift that has grown between you and look for your own faults. What did you do wrong? Sure, it’s often easy to blame the other person for the problems, but let yourself go beyond that – you’ll grow as a person and open yourself up to repairing a painful rift if you do.

Write a letter. Sit down, put a pen to paper, and actually write a letter to your mother. This is a perfect opportunity to let her how what she has meant to you over the years. If you’re not sure what to write, just tell stories. Write about the memories you have of her that have really influenced you – and then mention why they influenced you. This written letter will mean far more than any card ever would.

Make a phone call. You can do much the same thing over the phone if you wish, but it’s often just good to place a long phone call to your mother and just talk about everything. Put some time aside for the call so that you can focus on what your mother is actually saying – especially between the lines – and also relate openly about the things you’re feeling and thinking.

Pay a visit. Spend an afternoon with your mother. Watch a movie together. Have a conversation. Eat a meal together. Let the conversation flow. Time spent together is the most valuable gift you can give.

Do a favor. There’s almost always a task that your mother needs done around her home. Perhaps a room needs repainted. Maybe the car needs detailed. Maybe the shrubs need trimmed. One spectacular gift is to simply do that task, no questions asked. Just take care of it, so that the weight of the task is removed from her mind.

Prepare a meal. Visit your mother’s house, sit her down in the kitchen with you, then prepare a meal while conversing with her. Set the table, serve the meal, then clean up all the dishes and appropriately pack away the leftovers. Leave the house just as you arrived (except with perhaps some food in the refrigerator) and you’ll leave a parent that knows that you care.

Make a video. Take a video of the important things in your life. For me, it would be filled with my children and my home. I’d take clips of my kids playing in the yard, our garden beginning to emerge, and so on. Edit this together into a short film and include a bit at the end that tells your mother how much you care.

Involve yourself in something your mother cares about. Attend a service at her church. Show up at her bridge club meeting. Spend a Saturday at Habitat for Humanity. Most importantly, do these things without reservation – put your heart into it, even if personally you aren’t involved in it. Let her introduce you to her friends and take a bit of pride in you. At the same time, show her that she matters to you – and the things she values are important to you, too.

What’s the common theme in all of these ideas? Time. Not money. Time is the gift that has real value when you’re showing someone that you truly care.

This Mother’s Day, don’t worry about spending your money on a card or a fancy gift. Instead, start now on something that’s an investment of your time. That’s a gift that will really matter.

The last week has been pretty rough for me following the passing of my grandmother. I was pretty close to her from my earliest years, but over the last few months, we hadn’t spoken as much as we normally had. I was involved with my own children and she had not called as often as she used to, which I didn’t think much about at the time, but now I realize was just another sign of her Alzheimer’s growing slowly worse.

When she passed away, the initial shock was difficult, but it was actually much harder after the funeral, when I tried to get back into my normal routine. To put it simply, I didn’t want to write. I felt down. I kept thinking about Grandma – and also about how my mother was dealing with things. Memories kept popping into my head. The last thing I wanted to do was to write or do research. I mostly just wanted to hide under a blanket somewhere.

Then I realized something. If Grandma saw me sitting around feeling that sorry for myself, she would let into me like no one’s business. She constantly expected great things from me, more than other people, and she told me why once – because she knew that I was capable of it.

So I spent some time putting myself in a better psychological place – and it really helped. Here are some of the things that really worked.

Let it out The quicker you let it all uncork, the better off you’ll be. I spent some time thinking about the happiest memories I had with Grandma and, before long, the tears came, hot and hard. I cried for a bit, then I felt much better about things.

Exercise I went on a three mile walk, then I did a little bit of interval training (basically, I ran as fast as I could for a block, then stopped until I caught my breath, then did it again, repeating several times). Endorphins do wonders for lifting your mood and making you feel better, even if it’s just a nice walk.

The outdoors After my walk, I sat outside in the grass for a bit. It was pretty cold (winter has been trying to fight back against spring here in Iowa over the last few days), but the fresh air, the sunshine on my skin, and the sound of birds in the trees brought me a steady and happy inner peace. I wound up tinkering around in the garden for a bit, enjoying the outdoors and being refreshed by the sweet spring air.

Simple meditation A period of simple meditation can help clear any troubled mind. Here’s a very basic one that works well for me. I get in a comfortable chair with my feet up. I close my eyes, then I focus on nothing but breathing. I breathe in for a four count, then breathe out for a four count. Once that becomes easy and natural, I focus on each part of my body, starting at my toes. I try to focus on making them go completely still. I move up my body, until I’m to my head, and I’m usually pretty close to sleep (but not quite). Then I go in reverse, back down my body, imagining those pieces coming back to life. It takes about twenty minutes and always makes me feel relaxed and more at peace with the world.

YouTube I have a big collection of YouTube bookmarks that simply lift my mood. They usually take me back to moments in my life that really made me happy, and each one usually gives me goose bumps. Here are a few of them.

Conversation I’ve talked to countless friends and family members over the last few days. Each conversation has helped. A simple phone call does the trick … and a good friend always listens and has something helpful to say.

Children I’ve spent a ton of time playing with my children. A child at play subtly convinces you to let go of the concerns in your life and simply revel in what’s happening at the moment. Rolling around on the floor with my daughter, playing Memory with my son, and having a dance party in the basement with them helped cure a lot of what I was feeling.

Love Just now, as I was writing this, my wife came into the office, put her arms around me, and gave me a big hug. Her constant, unyielding love helps with moments like this. She’s a constant source of support and conversation, and when I’m facing a difficult moment like this, she’s there for me in every way.

My maternal grandmother passed away very suddenly this past Thursday. It caught me completely by surprise, in fact – I was working on arrangements for a weekend guest at our home when my father called me with the news.

It shocked me, to say the least. Here are some of the things the last few days have taught me.

The grieving process is different for everyone. After I received the call, I cried a bit. I sat in a daze for a while, thinking about my grandmother. I then threw myself into doing something, calling a few distant relatives, then cleaning out the pantry in order to give my mind and body something simple to work on.

That time gave me what I needed to be emotionally strong for the funeral and the family events before and after.

Other family members dealt with things in different ways: tears, humor, solitude, eating, cooking, cleaning, and so on. Some wanted to talk about Grandma. Some wanted to talk about anything else. Some wanted to talk about nothing at all.

The best thing you can do is take a deep breath and realize that everyone around you is dealing with the same painful thing you are, in their own way. Be there when others want to talk, back off when they don’t want to, and feel fine giving yourself the room you need.

Times like this are what emergency funds are for. Obviously, the news meant our weekend was filled with an unplanned trip to spend a lot of time with people who weren’t expecting us to visit. This meant a lot of unexpected expenses – a long road trip, food, flowers, and so on.

If we were back in our paycheck-to-paycheck days, this would have been a big problem for us. Our budget for the next month would have been seriously hampered by the onslaught of little expenses here. More importantly, it would have added more stress into an already stressful time.

Instead, we didn’t worry about this at all – we just handled it. Our focus was on our family and our grieving process, not on whether or not we could afford to buy several bags of groceries or a 400 mile road trip or a contribution to a floral display for the funeral.

Times like this are when a strong social network comes through. The large social network that my parents have (that I’ve mentioned before) came through time and time again during the days between my grandmother’s passing and the funeral. They provided lots of food, lots of companionship, and help with arrangements as well. They ran errands, made phone calls, got deals on flower arrangements, gave advice on estate issues, and many, many other little things during those painful days.

These people didn’t need to be called or asked to help. They didn’t expect anything in return, either. They were simply willing to do it, no questions asked.

Why did these people simply do this? Why did they just step up out of nowhere when they were needed? They did it because my parents had always done it for them, no questions asked. My parents spend so much of their time helping others, providing advice and food and phone calls and technical assistance and many, many other things to the people around them on a daily basis. If they see someone near them in need, they simply help them instead of worrying about their own needs and free time.

That giving nature was returned to them in spades this week when they needed it – and they always have that helping hand when they find themselves in any difficult situation.

Rarely have I seen such a clear example of why it’s incredibly valuable to give freely of yourself.

Letting go of the bad memories is vital. When people pass away, there is a window of opportunity there to let lots of little things be bygones and let petty bad memories take a back seat, at least for a little while.

It can be painful to see some people at such a time, but there is no better time to embrace those people and begin the process of rebuilding a broken relationship.

I was able to watch this very thing happen a few times over the last week – and I truly hope that the end of my grandmother’s life will be able to plant the seeds of a few rebuilt relationships.

Perhaps, in some ways, this is my grandmother’s final gift to all of us.