My daughter-in-law laughed as she gave me a $2 scratch-off for my 73rd birthday. Ten months later, my own son shoved a senior living brochure in front of me and said, “We already picked your room.” They thought I was too old to fight back. They had no idea what I had been hiding.

A young mother needed to compare childcare costs.

A widower brought a stack of unopened letters and sat for a long time before he could say he was scared.

I couldn’t solve their problems with a check.

Nor would that have been responsible.

But I could sit beside them, ask questions, and help them prepare for appointments with qualified counselors.

When I told Helen what I was doing, she said, “So you’ve traded one kind of unpaid labor for another.”

“There’s a difference,” I told her.