My dad has cancer. He’s 72 and didn’t want a lot of invasive surgeries and treatments, so he isn’t treating it. He isn’t in much pain and has a hospice nurse who comes by a few times a week, so overall he’s doing ok. However, his breathing isn’t great and obviously he’s pretty tired. My mom is 64 and is pretty healthy, but she’s also a Type-1 diabetic. They are wonderful people and great parents. I’m one of the view people I know who doesn’t have any childhood scars from my parents.

We live in the Midwest, so we’ve had our usual spring storms. Friday night, one of their trees was hit and knocked some big branches down. My dad obviously couldn’t take care of it, and my mom’s blood sugars were acting up so she couldn’t use the chainsaw to cut them up. They had resigned to paying someone to take care of it. Before they even had the chance to do that, their neighbors behind them started taking care of it. They are a married couple with two young kids. The dad was chopping up the branches and the kids were carrying the limbs to his truck. Another neighbor started helping as well. They got everything taken care of quickly.

I saw my mom the next day (Sunday) at a family gathering. She was so touched that they took care of everything. I guess my dad had talked with the guy a few days before that about things. His kids would come by frequently to play with my parents’ dogs (both had to be put down within the past few months). Between that and the cancer, I think the parents were trying to be respectful of my parents and the kids hadn’t come by as much. My dad let him know it was fine for them to come by, and told the guy that he could tell what a good dad he was by how he interacted with his kids. Their neighbor before this family was an awful man (my mom, who is the nicest person in the world, referred to him as an AH so you know he was haha) and both of my parents are just grateful to have good people by them.

My brother and I live around an hour from our parents in different directions. We see them often and obviously are there if they need anything, but it’s such a relief knowing there are people who can help them close by. They are both pretty independent people, but they also help others however they can. I’m so thankful they have people keeping an eye out for them!