I thought we were friends when we could see each other’s front yards. When I could walk across the street and sit on her porch steps on a southern summer day.
But then state lines and travel schedules and soccer games and years proved that our relationship was something different, something more.
We were neighbors.
In those years of hot humid summers with her deep southern drawl and her cute little boys, she taught me that being a neighbor – the kind Jesus calls us to be – means being present.
For her, that meant baking cakes and remembering birthdays. It meant coming over to feed my dogs when I was so sick I couldn’t make it down the stairs. It meant always throwing her door wide open and it didn’t matter that grocery bags stood abandoned on the counter or that little boy dishes sat in the sink.
That soft spot of a heart didn’t care about a spotless life. Instead, she cared about and for her neighbors.
It took me a long time to realize what she’d taught me.
Those years, those pulled weeds, those impromptu cul-de-sac parties, those afternoons in the shade of her porch, those prayers for each other – they taught me something about slowing down and creating the space that gets filled with neighborliness.
There are jobs and kids and sports and busy, and it’s hard to make time for folks who are simply ‘the people who live next door.’
But there on that street, in the space between houses, I watched this remarkable woman BE a neighbor. I watched her rock babies and take groceries. I watched her fill a mailbox with all the goodness of a personal note.
Neighbor as a label can be remote or difficult, but neighbor as an action leads to deep laughter and borrowed sugar.
I have prayed about my neighbours that God would give me an opening to get to know them. I got bitten by my neighbour’s dog and when we chatted we decided we should meet for coffee. It never happened and then one day when I came home from church there was a beautiful bunch of flowers and I thought my husband had gone over the top for valentine’s day but no they were for my neighbour’s daughter. I phoned her and she came over to collect and then we talked about coffee again. I was going to stay with my Mum who had dementia and would be away for 10 days as all the family going to USA for wedding. We said we would meet on my return. Sadly my mum died during that time so when I eventually contacted my neighbour to tell her why I hadn’t been in touch she immediately said lets do coffee asap and we did. A wonderful friendship ha evolved and we have been out for coffee/lunch, to parties and met to chat. I have met some lovely friends of hers and I have discovered her mother has alzheimers. We have shared books and recipes and I found out she is a Christian. All these years and now friends. Prayer changes things for definite. I have met the neighbor across the way through saving her dog from being run over by a tractor. God can make things happen in so many different ways!
What a blessing to find a best friend in your own neighborhood! I’m so sorry for the sad circumstances that brought you together, yet grateful for the comfort you offer one another.