The Enquirer and United Way of Greater Cincinnati have joined forces for the 35th year to help families in need with the Wish List program. This is the third of eight stories that will run this month.
In a hallway of the red brick house in Lincoln Heights where Linda Green has lived for nearly 40 years hangs a photo of her late husband, Richard Green Sr.
“When I walk by there, a lot of times I talk to him,” says Linda, gray-haired at 71. “But I’ve been so busy, I don’t even have time to stop and talk to his picture.”
Raising three granddaughters occupies her time and sometimes fills her with anxiety. Ten years ago, when the girls’ mother was struggling and the possibility existed that they would be placed in foster care, Linda and Richard took them in. The couple became their legal guardians in 2014.
Linda always expected her husband would be by her side, helping. But the disabled Marine veteran died of lung cancer in July 2015 at age 73. They had been married 48 years.
She remembers his last words as he departed for the hospital: “Linda, make sure you take care of the kids.”
She is doing her best.
“She makes us be good, go to school, get good grades,” says 14-year-old Takia, a ninth-grader at Princeton High School. “She wants us to be great.”
“And successful,” adds her 11-year-old sister, Na’Kiyah, a sixth-grader at Princeton Community Middle School. Their 16-year-old sister Imari, who also attends Princeton High, was away this day.
Linda says she takes an old-school approach to child-rearing. “I always try to obey the rules, and I try to teach them that. That’s how I was raised,” she says. “My job is to make sure they go to school. None of that skipping school, don’t-care attitude.”
To help ensure the girls reach their full potential, Linda enrolled them in Ladies of Leadership, a nonprofit mentoring program that builds self-esteem and instills confidence in minority girls ages 7 to 18. Ladies of Leadership nominated the family for Wish List.
Linda has struggled to provide her granddaughters with things many people take for granted, such as clothes and shoes. “I’m paying my bills and paying my utilities, and there’s not a whole lot left. It’s been hard.”
What’s more, Linda worries that she can’t afford needed repairs to their home, built in 1973.
The flooring is in bad shape in the home’s two bedrooms, and the carpet in the girls’ room is decades old. A basement bathroom shower and cabinet need repair, as do the home’s gutters. And with no lawnmower, the family relies on friends to cut the grass.
“We never suffered financially when (Richard) was here, even though we were poor,” Linda says. “I didn’t even realize I was poor. He kept things going. But things got really hard after he was gone, financially.
“I’m a strong person and I’ve been able to keep things going, but I don’t have any money,” Linda says.
She’s grateful for what she does have: grandchildren she loves and wants to see succeed.
LINDA’S WISH: Clothes and shoes for three grandchildren; home repairs; a lawnmower and shed to store it.
ESTIMATED COST: $5,000
How to help
Donations can be made online at www.uwgc.org/wishlist. You can also mail donations to: UWGC, Attn: Wish List, P.O. Box 632711, Cincinnati, OH 45263-2711
John Johnston is the content writer at United Way and a former Enquirer reporter.
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