Dr. Shellie Hipsky's

"A brother is a friend given by Nature." - Jean Baptiste Legouve

I watch my kids as they form bonds as siblings.  It’s a beautiful thing to observe.  As I listen as Allie pretends to read to her brother Jake or they play imaginary games together, I am reminded of a humble hero in my life.  It is so easy to make the comparison since they look and act just like us back in the day.  He’s my “baby brother”, John…  Yes. He is over thirty now, but my younger brother… forever. 

John Jacobs has dedicated his life to healing and helping people around the world as a traveling nurse.  When he was in high school he started volunteering in Mexico in Wahaca teaching about basic health care.  Now, he travels to places such as Haiti and the Dominican Republic to support their needs (he also has brief stints in fun city locales such as Boston).  It is these far away jaunts he has been doing for year that have always impressed me as his big sister.   It also amazes me that no matter what remote location he is he always seems to find a way to answer my own nursing questions or drop everything to help me from far away when he can.

This is rooted in our history together. When he was a toddler, I was the only one who could understand him and had to explain what he said. When I was a rebellious teenager, he used to cover up for me (much to my parent's dismay). As an elementary teacher in a special education room, a giant map of the world hung in my room and my students would plot his travels and read the many postcards he would write to the learning disabled kids. Many in this classroom had never been much farther than the trailer park they were living at an reading stories of floating down the Amazon River opened up the world to them. Now Skype allows him to be a super uncle from where ever he may be.  He's always been there for me no matter how far away he is in location.

Fortunately, John always has his camera with him and gets some fabulous shots of people and children.  As an education professor, I delight in showcasing his awesome collection of children from around the world in my office.  Here he is taking a picture of children...

The pictures from around the world include those from almost all the continents.  Here are three of my favorites from his recent trip to the Dominican Republic…

 

 

 

John Jacobs ©

I am proud to call John my brother and my friend.  Now, I will go back to listening to my own children and continue to be amazed at the beauty of sibling relationships.  I would love to hear about others who have witnessed close bonds with siblings.

Tonight, my 4-year-old Alyssa and I ventured out on our first volunteer project together.  We began with a story from about when I started volunteering at 12 years old with students with special needs during our long car ride.  She likes the idea of volunteering because it has always been something I have spoken about with great joy while raising over $35,000 for the Homeless Children's Education Fund (HCEF).  In fact, for the past two years, Allie has raised money for “mommy’s homeless kids” by collecting nickels and dimes and was recognized by the HCEF for her service.  I am very proud of her!

We walked into the transitional housing together.  The aroma of greens, chicken, and sweet potatoes filled the air.  The awesome dinner was cooked by one of the women from the shelter.  It was wonderful to start the evening out like this as we broke bread with the kiddos and their moms.

Then Roy Juarez, Jr. and I did an on-camera interview filmed by Dreamcatchers Films.  Roy has been "couch surfing" around America with his Homeless by Choice Tour about when he was homeless at 14 years old with his baby brother and young sister. I first met him through Ray Leonard the radio host at kmr-media when we featured Roy in the book Ordinary People Extraordinary Planet.  It was incredible to have his personal understanding of what these kids are facing there with us in the shelter. 

After our interview, I went up upstairs and got the Luv My Woobie, Inc. ® blankets.  In my immediate family, every Christmas morning we would stand at the top of the steps as my dad would check and see if Santa was gone and the coast was clear.  It felt like that for me as I asked the kids if they wanted their blankets.  They raced down the flights of stairs and burst into the playroom.  My Allie helped me to pass out the blankets to the babies and toddlers.  One precious one was literally 4 days old.  Yes… 4 DAYS old.  We were awe struck by the baby’s newness and beauty…

The kids loved their blankets.  I want to thank the mothers for allowing us to show their adorable faces on this site.  The littlest ones got pacifiers to tuck into the built-in blanket pockets from Luv My Woobie, Inc.

For the slightly older ones, my daughter realized that the kids needed something for the their woobie pockets, so the night before she went to her toys and brought out two little hands full of pocket-sized toys to let the kids pick. 

After the woobie blanket drop (which is simultaneously happening this week in an LA shelter and in with Getrude Matshe in Zimbabwe through the Africa Alive Education Foundation the babies who were orphaned by AIDS)... I got to read the Eric Carle book Polar Bear Polar Bear What Do You See? Complete with a story teller apron, the stuffed animal attachments and the beautiful kids crawling on me naming the animals and the sounds they make. It definitely brought me back to my teaching days!

Following the bedtime story snuggled up in their woobies and yummy cookies, the adults went to the community center room and we were joined by teenage boys from a local shelter. After I introduced him, Roy Juarez told his incredibly powerful story.

As I tucked my Allie in tonight, we reminisced about the babies, especially the one who attached herself to me...

Alyssa said to me as we snuggled warm into her own bed as she clutched her woobie, “I am glad we aren’t homeless. I liked helping those cute babies.”  Please buy your baby a blanket at www.luvmywoobie.com so that we can continue to help blanket the world with love and kindness, because for every one purchased... a special woobie is made for a child in need!