It’s not that I no longer have nice things to say. I do.
I just find myself being more frustrated with my fellow homo sapiens
than not these days and I choose not to give my energy to those thoughts and
feelings. I don’t like feeding the
monster. Fortunately, Good has a way of
revealing itself and Humanity’s light shines through!
While sadness and anger are still going strong over one group of children
(which is justified and if you don’t agree with that, shame on you), another
group of children were at the center of a heroic display of courage, strength,
determination, and the power of focus and prayer. Study the faces of those 12 rescued boys,
because I suspect we will see them again in acts of good in the future.
During their ordeal in underground darkness, my family was enjoying fun and
sun with a group of friends at the lake.
The kids got to do things they’d never done – rock jumping, wave riding,
boating, and such – while the grownups got to tell remember when stories and
just relax. It was beautiful. Until…
During the drive home, we got a call from our neighbor, David. He’s our friend, we asked him to get our mail
and offered use of our pool, so we weren’t surprised to hear from him but we
didn’t expect “There’s a problem.” and certainly didn’t expect “The house is
flooded.” He told us it began with the
kitchen sink. He turned off the water
and then went to the garage – which is not a pleasant place to be – and found our
shopvac, so he sucked up the standing water.
We were still about an hour away from home, so our brains kicked into
overdrive, imagining the worst. My
husband has thousands of dollars worth of irreplaceable vintage amps. We thought of my daughter’s violin, we
thought of photos and books and all the things that may be low to the
ground. We assumed our brand new floors
were ruined and there’d be a lot of damage.
Then, we started to process what could have possibly happened and how
amazing it was that it was discovered so quickly because our neighbor said that
it was not leaking the evening before when he was there.
Thankfully, when we got home we saw that the water had been fairly well
contained, thanks largely to David’s efforts.
When I thanked him, he told us that he didn’t discover it. The neighbors directly behind us saw water
pouring down the back of our house! We
were obviously not home, but the man of the house remembered that our family
was friends with David’s family and they alerted him to the water. David took it from there.
We don’t know this other neighbor well.
The man speaks English, but works a lot and we don’t see the woman, who
doesn’t speak English well, very often.
It’s clear we look out for one another, and we smile and wave, but
that’s about it.
Their neighborly deed saved us a world of heartache, hours of hard work, and
probably lots and lots of money. How do
you repay that? By being a good neighbor
in return, of course. And a cookie cake
that says “Gracias” doesn’t hurt. When I
took the giant cookie to their door, our neighbor just said “You don’t have to
do that. We’re neighbors. That’s what neighbors do.” I agreed with him, thanked him, and told him
to shut up and take the cookie. Because
that’s also what neighbors do. They
smile at the naked toddler running past the door, they shake a hand, and
say thank you for being a great neighbor.
It really is that simple, isn’t it?
Aren’t we all neighbors here on this giant ball? Aren’t we ALL better off when we look out for
one another, when we help one another, and when we offer one another kindness
(and a cookie cake sometimes) instead of walls and closed doors?
Mother Teresa said it best, when she said “I want you to be concerned about
your next door neighbor. Do you know your next door neighbor?” If you
really want to get deep, she also said “It is impossible to love God without
loving our neighbor.” That’s
good advice for those who want to carry a religious flag while preaching about
walls and borders. Just sayin’.
So, with that in mind, I
shake off my frustrations, go back to smiling at all who cross my path, and ask
them in my best Fred Rogers voice, "Won’t you be my neighbor?”
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