Volunteering Helps Relieve Life’s Pain

Despite tragedies in her life, which include the losses of 93 relatives in the Holocaust and a son last year to AIDS, Rachel Miller has a lot to give to others.

Miller, 60, helps families with chronically ill and disabled children at the Valley Storefront in North Hollywood, which offers a variety of social services.

“Volunteering makes me feel that my life, in spite of everything, is OK. Even in my worst moments,” she says, “I could pick up the telephone and interact with them. I could be relieved from my pain. This is where I benefit from helping others.”

During World War II, Miller’s parents, two brothers and a sister were taken by the Germans from their home in Paris. They never returned. Miller survived by moving to the home of a Christian family and then to a convent. When she was 13, a U.S. soldier found her in an orphanage and brought her to America.

She married, had two children and worked 17 years as a department store buyer. But a broken ankle in 1986 left her in permanent pain, ending her career.

Then last December Miller suffered what she calls “the greatest pain.” Her youngest son, a 35-year-old attorney at Warner Bros., died of AIDS.

“In the Holocaust there were survivors,” she says. “But among people with AIDS, there are none.”

As her son’s condition worsened, Miller kept busy by volunteering for the Family Friends Project of the Valley Storefront.

She already had served as a PTA volunteer and as state president of the Ladies Auxiliary of the Jewish War Veterans. She also interviews senior citizen clients of the Storefront.

The Family Friends program sends volunteers to provide relief for parents who have children with chronic illnesses or disabilities. Miller calls each of the 65 families every six weeks to check on their needs and their relationship with volunteers, turning over the information to social workers.

“She’s pretty inspiring to all of us,” says Friends director Susan Forer-Dehrey, “not only because of what she’s gone through, but because of her ability to connect with people in need.

“If someone is hospitalized or a kid is sick or something’s happened, Rachel’s usually the one who gets that information and passes it on.”

Recently Miller sat in a small, five-sided office crowded with desks and cabinets and phoned a single mother whose son has cerebral palsy.

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Is this a good time for you to talk? Did you enjoy our picnic? Did your son like the couple we sent as new friends? What size shoes do your children need? Do you have a light bill? Is there anything else we can do?

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“When you give money,” Miller says, “you don’t know what happens to it. But I’m interacting with people. It’s a continuing thing, not a case where they come and pass through my life. That’s what I like.”

Miller also works with the Volunteer Center of L.A., which recruits volunteers for nonprofit agencies, and KCET pledge drives.

Miller wants to do more for the American Foundation for AIDS Research. She also plans to start a bereavement group for families of people who died of AIDS.

“It’s pain beyond description for parents to lose a child,” she says. “We don’t want to lose any more children. They have so much to contribute.”

“There have been a lot of painful moments,” she says. “But you keep going. Otherwise you lose yourself. And I don’t want to be lost.”