Single mom gets Christmas from Crozer co-workers
“I didn’t realize. I could barely speak. I only thought there were two or three. I didn’t expect it to be two huge bags from Santa — and I didn’t expect there to be anything for me. There was even a gift card for groceries. For that amount of presents, it was really nice. I don’t even see these people every day.” — Laura McNeil
Four years ago, Laura McNeil was starting on a journey that would require her to navigate the world of restraining orders and uprooting herself over and over and over again.
“About four years ago, I had broken ribs from domestic violence,” the 31-year-old Georgia native and single mom said Saturday.
But she wasn’t one to accept that. “I didn’t tolerate it. I got out of it. I had to raise my daughter by myself.”
Still, she had to move six times in seven years before her situation began to stabilize.
Twelve years ago, she got a full-time job at Crozer-Chester Medical Center as an Xray technologist. There, the kindness of her co-workers quickly filled the gap left by having family so far away.
“They’re wonderful,” McNeil said. “They do everything for me – change my tires, give me a ride when it’s snowing. They’re just awesome. I spend holidays with them.”
She had no idea the degree of awesome they could be.
For years, members of Crozer-Chester Medical Center’s mammography department have been providing Christmases for special people. McNeil herself had helped in those efforts as she just naturally helps wherever she can, such as packing food and toys and taking them to CityTeam Ministries in Chester.
“They do it every year for someone they know,” she said.
This year, McNeil and her 8-year-old daughter, Layla, were at the top of the list.
On Friday, Pam McGeorge, who works in the mammography department, sent McNeil a Facebook message.
It was a very busy day, McNeil explained but the message was short: “If you want to come over here, we have some things for you.”
McNeil didn’t conceive of what was about to unfold as she went to see McGeorge.
Earlier this season, a group of eight radiologists and members of the mammography department including McGeorge and her husband, Bill, approached her.
“We want to help with Christmas,” they said. “What do you guys want?” Although she has parents and grandparents in the South, McNeil has always provided for herself and her daughter.
“They’re not in a position to ever send me anything,” she said. “I still bought what I could for my daughter.”
McNeil said she was surprised when she went to the department.
“I didn’t realize,” she said. “I could barely speak. I only thought there were two or three. I didn’t expect it to be two huge bags from Santa — and I didn’t expect there to be anything for me. There was even a gift card for groceries. For that amount of presents, it was really nice. I don’t even see these people every day.”
She tried to explain how much their act of kindness meant to her.
When McNeil was 23 years old, she got married and had her daughter.
“He got into drugs and got violent,” she said of her former husband. So she left, although he followed her and moved a block away.
“I kept hopping around and hopping around,” McNeil said of efforts to keep herself and her daughter safe. “Everything’s good now. It’s all in the past.”
Even though the violence was gone, holidays could still be a difficult time with family so far away.
“I feel like my child should have all this family coming over instead of us sitting here by ourselves in the quiet,” she said. “We shouldn’t be sitting here alone.”
McNeil said she worries about her daughter’s loneliness. “That’s probably my main concern,” she said, adding that her daughter’s heart is as generous as hers as she accompanies her mom on her CityTeam ventures and had been sneaking her toys to school to give to children who didn’t have them.
Yet her Crozer-Chester family has also come to that rescue too.
“They pretty much make up for that, my co-workers they make up for that,” McNeil said. “They kind of adopted us.”
McNeil is so grateful, she explained it can be a little overwhelming.
When she was given the gifts Friday, she was able to contain her emotions — for a while.
It wasn’t until she went to pack the bags so she could go home that it hit her.
“It barely fit in the trunk of my car and I just started crying,” she said. “These people are amazing – and I don’t even see them every day.”
That didn’t mean the affection she held for them in her heart is any less.
“I’m probably going to lose it when I see them,” she said. “I’m probably going to just hug them all.”