We are made for togetherness. We are made for all the beautiful things we know. We are made to tell the world there are no outsiders. Unknown
One of life’s most common actions, answering a ringing phone, might be forgettable. Or, within a moment, it might invite a person into someone else's story. In the spring of 2004, at the thirty-eight-week mark in my pregnancy with Dicka, I got a call. And in came the invitation.
“I’d like to hear more about the childcare you do,” a woman said.
I frowned. “Sorry, you must have the wrong number. I don’t do childcare.”
“Is this your phone number?” She rattled off my digits.
“Yes. How did you get it?”
She explained, and the memory of the flyer came back. Sometime in 2002, near the beginning of our life in north Minneapolis, I had a flickering urge to make some extra money. If I wanted to stay home, what better way than to do childcare for someone? On a whim, I had dropped off a flyer—with my phone number on tear-off tabs—at our little local library, asking the woman behind the desk if she would post it for me. I had never seen it hanging on the library’s bulletin board, so it was a miracle having the subject of the flyer surface now, two years later. Curiosity needled me. I had to meet Rachelle, the woman on the other end of the line.
Rachelle lived only six blocks from us, and later that week, she came over with her two girls, Ireland and Willow, and her husband Jim. Husband was home to meet them too, and we learned that while Jim was a stay-at-home dad, sometimes he needed a respite from caring for two-year-old Willow. Ireland was eight years old and in school, so she wouldn’t need the coverage.
While the men visited, I took Rachelle on a tour of our house. She was engaging, and her eyes brightened at the art on the girls’ bedroom walls. She was an artist too, I learned. She asked my childcare rates. I threw out a number, and she said she’d talk with Jim about it and let me know.
The visit ended, the warmth of connection singing through my soul. Another in-road into a neighborhood I was determined to welcome into our lives. As Rachelle, Jim, and the girls climbed into their car, we waved at them from the window.
“What a great family,” I said to Husband.
“When you were upstairs, Jim told me something.”
“Really? What?”
“He has cancer. That’s why he needs help with Willow sometimes.”
The news punched me, and any mundane thoughts about our day skittered from my mind. The childcare request grew larger than life—and death.
Rachelle phoned me the next day.
“Your rates are reasonable, and we’d love to have you watch Willow. After your baby comes, and you’re ready, of course.”
I swallowed hard. “Rachelle, I heard about Jim’s cancer. I’m sorry.”
“Well, now we’re happy we met you,” she said, her tone light. “It will help so much.”
“I’ll let you know when the baby’s here.”
But I knew the birth of more than one change was upon us.
This morning in 2022, I pause from my eighteen-year-old story to remember Rachelle and the intersection of our lives, the times to come that would bind our families, and lessons about the sacred welcome that awaits us all.
Come back next week for more.
*Names in this blog have been changed to protect my family and friends in the neighborhood, and in a nod of appreciation to the beloved Swedish author Maj Lindman, I’ve renamed my three blondies Flicka, Ricka, and Dicka.