For two years, I had been babysitting my neighbors three-year-old son.
- He was such a sweet tyke when he first came to our house, and now he looked at us like another set of grandparents.
We loved that little boy and when she had a second little one, we immediately fell in love with him. Unfortunately, life stepped in and she lost her husband. He had been planning on having central HVAC in the house by the end of winter, but he died before winter arrived. She had two wood burners in the house and no wood to feed them. My husband was cutting wood for the neighbor and for us. We were nearly seventy and he had his hands full. My husband showed her how to take care of the wood burning furnace, and he would deliver wood to her once a week. By the end of winter, my husband was exhausted, and I was watching a three-month old and a three-year-old. I told my husband she was going to need to do something, because he could not keep up this pace. One afternoon, after she got home from work, she asked if it would be too much for my husband if he watched for the HVAC technician. He was going to come to our house if she wasn’t home when he arrived. Her husband’s insurance had finally paid her. She paid off the house, and had ordered a ductless HVAC system for the house. She handed me a card and told me she loved us. Inside was a paid trip to visit our kids who lived down south. She was going to relax and spend some time with the kids, because he provided her with enough money so she would never need to work.