In anticipation of a garden that last year, grew faster than
I could pick it, I decided this year to recruit help early. And while
interviewing one such helper this week, I was explaining the need to keep doors closed, as
one critter (namely Boo) is not allowed outside, when my newest friend shared that she too, loved cats and had four of her own, but then she added that three of them had gone
missing.
“ Oh my
gosh!” I blurted. “Do you think the coyotes got them?” (This is why we make
sure Boo stays inside at all times.) “Nah” she said. “Most likely neighbors.”
She might as
well have spoken Russian…so foreign was her reply.
As she proceeded to share why she
and her neighbors don’t speak to this day, I shook my head in disbelief,
silently thinking to myself: “Dear God, may I never ever take for granted the
gift of good neighbors."
Only once
in my life have I not known my neighbors. (Actually only one neighbor, on one
side of me, back in my Nashville days. She was a grumpy old woman who hated
kids and fussed at the ones living on the other side of her when once they cut
across her yard to come see my goats. Instead she made them walk on the edge of
a busy highway, which was neither safe nor necessary. From that point on we all
just kept our distance. But these days, especially here in the country, neighbors are family…as much a part of my
peace of mind as my critters.
So far this
week, I’ve had one neighbor undergo cataract surgery; another who underwent
cancer surgery. (If this doesn’t bring out the casserole dishes, nothing will.)
Next week another takes his grandkids to Disney, while another one’s child starts summer break (which makes me and my goats very happy).
Bottom line
– there’s family you’re born into, and there are those you get to choose. And
then there are those, like good neighbors, that God plops right next to you
just to make sure you’re covered on all fronts.
All I can say is I wouldn’t take
anything for mine~ (and that includes up, down and both sides of the lane).
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