The Right Thing to Do

Yesterday, Tom had to take all out tax papers to the accountant who has done his taxes for, well, forever. I gave him a stack I had printed just days before and let him have at it.

About an hour later, he called me to ask for clarification of some of the receipts I’d included.

He wanted to know what Reece’s Rainbow was and why I’d given them money last year.

I explained about orphans with special needs and how it felt like the right thing to do last year to give money to families who wanted to bring these children home.

He said something like, “I didn’t realize you had this kind of extra money.”

I started to feel defensive.

I explained that I’d given once a month, every month last year. I told him it was sometimes $25, sometimes $50, whatever felt right at the time.

He started to ask another question and I stopped him.

I said, “This was the right thing do to. If Olivia had been born in one of those countries, we’d have been pressured to leave her in an orphanage, where she’d have either died of neglect, grown very little and ended up in an institution at five years old, unable to walk, to talk, to feed herself. We were lucky. She was born here, to us, people who have access to the best doctors, the best therapists, the best teachers. Those babies aren’t that lucky and it is only right that people like us, who have a little extra, or heck, maybe we don’t have a little extra but we search to find it and give it anyway in hopes that some family will find them and have the funds to bring them home.”

He didn’t say another word. He thanked me for explaining what the receipts were for and went about his day.

Last night, for some reason, he was kinder, sweeter, gentler to me and the girls than he has been for a a while.

Let me state right here, Tom is never mean, but he can sometimes come across as aloof even to me and the girls. But last night, he was there, right there with us, participating in family life and maybe soaking in how very lucky we really are to have all that we have together.