Imagine going to a doctor’s appointment, and asking a neighbor to watch your kids. You figure you’ll be back, pick up the kids, and no big deal. But for Audrey, who asked her neighbor Tisha if she could watch her three kids for a night to allow her to focus on her upcoming doctor meeting, it was going to be a very big deal: she just didn’t know it yet.
For Tisha, who herself has five kids, is married and is a bingo cashier in Sin City, it was nothing to throw three more kids into the mix for a night, so she said “sure.”
But it was about to be a life-changing time for everyone involved.
As the Fox 5 Surprise Squad reported in Las Vegas, Tisha’s huge heart was soon to be matched by the love and admiration of everyone who heard her story.
As it turned out, Audrey’s medical tests did not reveal good news at all. She had Stage Two esophageal and stomach cancer, neither of which are a good diagnosis on their own, let alone together. Audrey knew her future was uncertain.
Although Tisha and Audrey knew each other only as acquaintances, via their older girls’ mutual friendship, desperate times call for desperate measures, and Audrey wasn’t in a position to be timid. So she boldly asked the woman who was supposed to be just watching her kids for one night if she would consider taking them as their legal guardian, should Audrey pass way.
For many of us, such a commitment might have been too daunting to take on. But for Tisha – who had herself grown up in the foster care system and an orphanage – it was a no-brainer, and she said “yes” without hesitation.
Shockingly, Audrey’s days were even more numbered than anyone could have expected, and she passed away only two weeks later.
Now faced with eight kids and two adults in a small and cramped house that was already in need of repairs before any of this happened, the family made due as best they could. But a neighbor called in the situation to Fox, and what happened from there was simply amazing.
Vendors and neighbors came together, literally rebuilding the walls of the house to create new rooms for all the kids, a local company rolled in and donated brand new furnishings, the carpets were all replaced, and even the landscaping got spruced up! It all happened while the family spent a few days at the casino hotel where Tisha worked, and they had no idea what was waiting for them when they returned.
Not only was the house redesigned inside, it had fresh paint, décor, and a beautiful Christmas tree loaded with presents for all the kids. But that was just the beginning! After the family walked through the house in amazement, they came outside to see a beaming white SUV donated by a local car dealership. And their eldest son got $1,500 in cash towards a new apartment, so he could branch out on his own.
Somewhere above, Audrey surely had to be beaming from ear-to-ear. For what better Christmas present could there ever be than to have a real family?
As Nat King Cole once crooned so knowingly in Nature Boy: “The greatest thing/You’ll ever learn/Is just to love/And be loved in return.”
And those are sentiments this amazing family would surely echo.
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