Neighborly Kindnesses

Recently, Tall Guy and Three Speed have spent a lot of time “dog sitting” for our neighbors.  This couple moved in several years ago, and became our best neighborhood friends.  I hope everyone has a neighbor or friend like this.  I have had several over the years.  They are the kind of folks you can call any time you need help with something.  They’ll be there.  They’ll call if they need something, too.

For example:  We have worked out a sharing arrangement with the riding mower.  It belongs to the neighbor.  He lets us use it.  My kids mow both lawns.  We buy gas (most of the time).  I feed and water the human kids.  They keep the canine kids out of the way when the mower is running.

The husband helped chop up our tree that fell over in a bad storm a couple of years ago.  He kept some of the wood for his woodworking.  We boxed up a bunch of it and took it to a little old lady (she’s in her 80’s) down the street who heats mostly with wood.  It saves her fuel bills, and is community service for the kids. 

I can remember babysitting for neighbors over the years.  We would house sit, water plants, walk dogs, mow lawns, take in mail and newspapers, and many other little things that needed to be done.  If someone was sick or in the hospital, dinners would magically appear.  The same thing happened after births or deaths.  The neighborhood took over the kitchen so Mom didn’t have to do the dishes, either.  

It’s the little kindnesses like these that are missing these days.  We seem to have disconnected from each other gradually.  The “Me Generation” puts themselves first.  They don’t think about the effect of what they do on others. 

How hard is it to open a door for someone who is coming in behind you?  Especially if this person is elderly, has difficulty walking, is dealing with small children or carrying lots of things?  Does it really take any longer to say “Please”, “Thank You”, or “You’re Welcome”?  Does it hurt to say “Sir” or “Ma’am”?

I know these are “old fashioned”.  But I sure get lots of smiles from them every day.  Respect others and see what you get back.  It doesn’t always work, but it just might make some other people’s days more pleasant.  Who knows what might happen if we all did it?  :-)

Random Acts of Kindness

The holiday season is the time of year when we hear about people doing kind things.  Caring acts happen all year long, and are rarely recognized.  As a Mom trying to raise children, I am trying to teach them to be kind to others “just because”.  Some of the conversations we have about this can be funny.

We have an elderly woman in our neighborhood that uses wood for her heat as much as she can to save on her electric bill.  When we have a big storm, there are lots of branches that come down from the trees into our yard.  The children and I gather them up into boxes and take them to her.  It’s a lot of work.  At first they wanted to know who was going to pay us for this.  I explained that we were doing a “good deed”.  Since we didn’t live near our Grandma and Grandpa, we were doing it for someone else’s Grandma.  It took a long time for that one to sink in. 

My Mother had a neighbor who is an author.  When she and her husband were moving to assisted living, she had a lot of books that she couldn’t keep.  The local school wasn’t interested.  Our middle school had recently opened and had few books in its library.  I offered to come get the books and bring them back (two hour drive each way).  She had hundreds of books to donate.  My children carried them up and down the steps in her house and we packed my van full! 

We sorted the books on my dining room table.  Some titles had quite a few copies, some had only a few.  I had no idea how many books she had written over the years.  She had everything from children’s books to adult’s books, with the concentration on books for adolescents.  There are several series of books.  One of them had entertained my children during their elementary years.

The librarian was astonished when school started.   They distributed them throughout the school system here.  A few ended up at the local library.  My children got credit towards their community service in boy scouts.  The author got some nice letters from school children. 

What did I get out of all of this?  I got a feeling that I had improved my community and taught my kids how to volunteer.  We kept the rest of the books in the series that we hadn’t finished.  I also got a lovely note from the author about how she appreciated the work I had done.