My aunt Leslie has always been a role model to me. I admired her from the time I was a little girl. Many of her homemaking skills, traditions, and values came from my grandmother, who is also one of the biggest inspirations in my life. Thinking about our relationship, I began to wonder what were the most important things she did to make me look up to her.

She stayed home with her children. She cooks healthy and delicious meals.  She makes holidays special with long-standing family traditions. She places highest priority on her religion and her family. As a matter of fact, she once recommended to me a book about Mother Theresa. A person like Mother Theresa is her standard for good living, if that tells you anything about her.
When her grandmother fell ill, Leslie left college to help care for her. She went to stay with a best friend dying of cancer for a little while. She has been there for both of her children, volunteering at their schools, remaining a confidante through their hard times, teaching them her values, and helping her son care for his diabetes. She has opened her house and heart to their many pets: three dogs, two cats, a fish or two, and any other one in need. 

One of the most amazing things I have seen her do was come home to visit, support, help care for, and just love her father, my grandfather, after he had a major stroke. He passed away seven months later. Anyone who has been there for someone who was incapacitated and in and out of hospitals knows how gutsy it is to be truly present for them.

What I realized was that the most inspiring thing about her is her concern for other people. This quality of hers far outshines everything else she does as a homemaker. Her loving concern is apparent in every interaction. She becomes completely engaged in conversation about the other person, asking about and sympathizing with every event, big or small, in that person’s life. I have received deeply caring notes from her on every occasion.

Most of the things I mentioned about her have taken place in the last couple of decades. Her oldest child is only nineteen years old. She has done all of these things while her children were and are growing up. Now that I’m a mother, that thought humbles me.

Leslie sometimes mentions how her house is not the way she would like it to be or how she needs to get more organized.  I have never once noticed the details of her housekeeping. It’s just not as noticeable as her nurturing spirit.