This month, I have taken dinner to two families who have recently welcomed new babies. I love bringing meals to people who need them. It’s a perfect outlet for my charism for hospitality. I didn’t discover my love for cooking for other people until after I had my first baby and got to experience how helpful it was when other people brought us food. It was like a light turned on. What an easy way to “love your neighbor,” for me, who loves baking, likes cooking, and loves babies (the most frequent reason I’m signing up on a Meal Train).
The moms group I was in when Miryam was born had a member requirement that you sign up and bring dinner to new moms twice per year, so each new mom would get 4 meals over the course of 2 weeks to feed her whole family. (There were a lot of us, and we were based at a Catholic Church, so the babies were inevitable. The system worked well!) I hadn’t fulfilled my own requirement yet when others started bringing me my four meals post-Miryam. Even the frozen lasagna was so welcome—although I admit the homemade one tasted better 🤫 —it was something we didn’t have to plan, shop for, prep, or cook. This felt like magic to us, brand new parents who could barely get ourselves showered and keep enough clothes clean from day to day, amid caring for a newborn for the first time and attempting to sleep when she slept. Food was magic. Food was love. Thank you, sweet veteran mamas, who gave us that magic and love!!
So, as soon as I was back to my routine and had feeding my own family under control again, I jumped at the first chance I had to sign up on someone else’s meal train. And the next. And the next. I made enchiladas, lentil soup, manicotti, muffins and cookies galore, and I always tried to make vegetables too, you know, mostly for nursing mom’s health. I have since graduated to usually bringing bagged salad kits from the store: vitamins and crunch are included at an unmatchable level of convenience, and it can be served alongside dinner, or saved for tomorrow’s lunch or dinner, according to the family’s needs.
Over the next few years, I signed up on every meal train that came my way, if I could. Like, if I don’t have a newborn myself, and I’m in town, I sign up. Now, I’m often the one asking my pregnant friends, “Can I please set up a meal train for you when your baby is born?” It goes well with my affinity for organizing and planning, and again my inclination to hospitality.
Here are some more of my go-to recipes for bringing others a meal: pulled pork, chicken tikka masala, and french onion chicken casserole. Also, this pumpkin bread, which does double duty as dessert and anytime snack.
When a family is in need, there is more to “loving them” and “being there for them” than just feeding them, though. I got to experience all the facets of being cared for by my “village” when Cecily was born last summer. When Miryam was born, we weren’t super close with anyone in Houston. We did have multiple installments of family and a few out-of-town friends coming to visit and help with cooking, cleaning, and holding the baby so she would sleep for goodness sake so I could sleep, too. When Luke was born, we lived with my parents and some sisters, so we naturally had so much help built in, it was hard to distinguish what was special to the newborn time and what was just regular “we live together” sharing of responsibilities.
But when Cecily was born, other than my mom coming to stay and help the first week, and again for a few days at a time here and there the first few months, we had no family backup in town. People asked me how I thought the transition from two to three kids would compare to the transition from one to two. Citing that “I lived with my parents when we went from one to two,” I figured it would be impossible that this transition would go as smoothly. I expected to be a total hot mess in the beginning, and I was so glad Justin got three whole weeks of paid paternity leave to make this transition doable.
But y’all. Remember the community I started forcefully building within one month of moving here in 2018? It turns out they liked me. And they stepped up. We had five straight weeks of three meals a week that other people brought us. This blows my mind. Sometimes it’s hard for me to get six meals for families I’ve made meal trains for. One couple of friends took my mom to the airport for us. Our next door neighbor picked my mom up from the airport another time. One friend kept the big kids for a 2-hour drop-off play date while Justin and I took Cecily to her 2nd mandatory “newborn screening” blood draw, so we wouldn’t have to lug them to the hospital, and pacify them, too, when they heard their baby sister cry. When friends texted to ask if I needed any staple groceries, and we were low on milk or bananas or bread, I said, “Yes, please!” instead of, “That’s okay, we’re good,” like I might have in the past, “so as not to be an inconvenience.” They offered; I am accepting: using my village. All of this from people we’d known less than a year at the time.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, Thank goodness for community.
Now I’m thinking about how God created us for community. For relationships. Our need for human relationships points to our need for a relationship with God. He will take care of us as a mother her new baby; he wants us to depend on Him like a baby on his mother; and sometimes he shows us His love through the love of our “neighbors.” While I was taking care of my newborn, my community was taking care of me. And it was freeing, in a way, to acknowledge that I can’t do this by myself—not well, anyway—and I don’t have to. It took some humility to accept help when it was offered, and much more to actually ask for help when I needed it. I tend to try not to be bothersome…but this time I decided to hope for the best when prevailing on the goodwill of friends, since we didn’t have family around upon whose charity I could undoubtedly depend. Also, because I knew I would reciprocate once I had things “under control” (which is a relative phrase, I’m realizing) again with my now three kids: by signing up on the next new mom’s meal train, or texting her before going to the store, “Do you need anything today?”
This applies to households of newborns of course, but also the bereaved, and sick moms or kids, etc. Last week I helped a friend clean out her van—crumbs, sticky stuff of unknown origin, forgotten sweaters, and old receipts—before leaving on a big trip, so she wouldn’t have to do it alone while also keeping half an eye on her five kids. (Selfishly, I also wanted to hang out with her one last time before she skipped town for two weeks, so it was a win-win.) This is being part of a village. This is “paying back” my village for their help when I needed it. This is how I can express my gratitude for what was done for me. It sounds cliche to say “pay it forward,” but it’s also really nice to be able to do just that.
Someone filled my cup, may I fill yours?
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