Over the years my sister and I have not been very close. Usually it is a few years on of talking then a few years off. So our relationship has always been strained.

16 days ago, Hurricane Ike swept through my neighborhood! I text-ed my best friend in Georgia, who kindly sent emails to my family and friends to let them know how we were doing since we have been without power for 15 days.

My family knows we have been spared so much as we have seen the devastation around us. We have a fence down, broken motion lights, one tree that fell, one more tree that has started to uproot so that needs to come down as it is leaning toward our house, stucco that needs to be repaired on the front of our house etc. Our insurance adjuster is supposed to be out this week to inspect our roof. Some of our neighbors have had much more damage then us and we have been trying to help them get thorough.

But we are alive and very grateful! We have 10 people in our family (My husband, myself and 8 children) We did have a generator that ran our frig and a few fans to help us get through. But by no means has it been easy. Getting homework done by flashlights, doing laundry in the tub, fighting mosquitoes, just to name a few.

During this time, all of our neighbors came together to help one another, helping cut downed trees, sharing food, and just making talk! We took our next door neighbor under our wing and made sure she had ice for her medication, a hot meal off our grill most nights etc (as she is single and elderly) We did offer our home but she refused to leave her pets over night. I did go to one of the PODS (for ice, water, MRE’s) and took all the kiddos with me. When we arrived they asked how many families were were helping and I explained to them what I was trying to do. Help all the neighbors on my corner since I had the bigger van. All of my neighbors were shocked that I thought of them after waiting for two hours in line. They said they would have never thought to tell anyone that they were helping the rest of the neighbors. By the time I got home, everyone was waiting for me in the driveway!! Never would I have expected to see so many thrill excited people! It was well worth it to me…the long wait to help my neighbors even though the kiddos were cranky.

Nonetheless, my sister works at a walmart store and she called me 5 days after the storm and told me that they were having a potluck on our behalf to help us out. This is the first thing my sister has ever done for me..I was overjoyed people that we did not know were coming together to help us.

My sister called me after the potluck! They raised 455.00 for us. WOW!! With price goudging, long lines, short supplies on money and food…my thought was I can help my neighbors out more.

That same night my sister called to tell me, they have been behind on their van payment and they just received a letter saying if they did not pay the one payment they were behind the van will be repossessed. (hummm…the timing of it all!)

I told her if she needed to use the money fine. Her response was I will get the money to you tomorrow (8 days days after the storm-Saturday). If I kept and used the money that would be unethical. Wow!! My sister is growing up..I thought!

Monday my sister called (10 days after the storm) and said to me…is it okay if I borrow the money, I will pay you back. (Keep in mind she owes her in-laws 7K and she is always borrowing money from people) But she is always taking trips to visit people out of state, eatting out ect. (For my sister it is her, her husband and 2 children and they make about 50K a year) I told my sister…do what you think is best.

Her response to me was, I don’t know if you need the money more then we do. I told her I could not answer that! All I could tell her was, our local credit union was closed and we had no access to any money and the one bank that we had access to had 210.00 in the account. Again she said she would send the money tomorrow.

I called her Wednesday to ask her if she decided what she was going to do, she said "I send you a money order, I kept some money and I sent you some money…this way it BENEFITS us both"

I of course am talking to my best friend about this and she sent my sister a letter. Telling my sister how everyone is in financial distress and how selfish it is of her to raise money at work for our family here and then for her (my sister) to try to benefit for herself. My friend told her outright, if she kept a penny of the money she would be committing fraud amoung her co-workers. My friend also asked if my sister told her co-workers what she was thinking about doing and that my friend was thinking about calling her manager to tell them what she was doing.

My sister called and left a message that the remaining money would be in the mail. She did not want my friend calling her job because she would get fired and she said that she thought I could be a sister that could help he

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