This beautiful woman is my sister-in-law, Nes. She's Wings's younger sister, and grandmother to the three equally beautiful little girls in the photo. I love them all very much. And Nes, her husband Daniel, and the girls need our help.
Nes and Daniel are raising all three girls, ages 7, 8, and 9, full-time. That means everything from ordinary parenting to school, student-teacher conferences, extracurricular and other activities and lessons, and traditional education and cultural and spiritual practices. Nes sews all the girls' traditional clothes, and she and Daniel make sure they're raised wholly immersed in their culture and language. For a woman in my age cohort (50s), that's a lot, especially considering that Nes works full-time as a home health aide, which is heavy labor that requires a lot of lifting.
In just over two weeks, that all changes.
On November 10th, Maya, the 8-year-old on the left in the photo, has to have corrective eye surgery. On November 15th, Nes herself has to have surgery to repair three giant tears to the rotator cuff of her dominant arm. She will be out of work for quite a while. In the meantime, Daniel, who was working as a tour shuttle driver, lost his job (a casualty of the economy here), and while he's lined one up as a school bus driver, he has to get training for an amendment to his CDL — and the first day of training is the same day as Nes's surgery.
Being Native is expensive. It's especially expensive for traditionals, and Nes and her family are very much traditional. Add to that the expense of raising three girls, and money is always tight at best. We always try to help them out as we can, but given our own situation, it's never enough. Now, when both of them will be temporarily out of work just as we head into winter and the holiday season, things could easily turn very grim indeed, and very fast.
Just over two weeks from now, she'll be in for surgery, then going to physical therapy and working on her recovery, and money will be more scarce than ever because she'll be out of work. Around that same time, we can expect the weather to turn exceptionally cold, and the snows to begin. Nes and Daniel and the girls are going to need help keeping the lights and heat on and food on the table, not to mention all the other expenses of raising three girls in elementary school. So we're trying to raise $10,000 over the next seven weeks or so to try to get them through the end of the year, in the hopes that by the new year, she'll be fully recovered and back to work, and Daniel's job will be well under way. I've set up a YouCaring page for their family. I'm listed as the organizer, because Nes wants the e-mail notifications to come to me; she doesn't have ready access to a computer. But that's the only thing that will come to me; the page is set up to route all donations straight to her checking account.
We've started the process off with $50. We were blessed a few days ago with a commission for some work by Wings, and this is coming out of that. We'll be helping in other ways, too, in the weeks to come. This is family, so we're asking everyone to help us share the link to their page, and if you're able and feel so inclined, to kick in a little, too. Nineteen people matching our donation puts them 1/10 of the way there.
Many thanks to everyone who helps, whether by donating or simply by spreading the word.
All content, including photos and text, are copyright Wings and Aji, 2016; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner
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