Thought I'd share an assignment for school I did the other day. This is just the first draft, so any suggestions on revisions would be appreciated! And I'd love any title suggestions, I don't like the title I have right now! :P It's supposed to be an "I believe" essay, but it can't have 'religion' in it. Though I didn't add any, I can't help but thinking of the verse, "'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’There is no commandment greater than these.'" (Mark 12:30-31) when I look over my essay. Of course, the neighbors this verse talks about aren't only the ones living in our neighborhood, but it includes them, too!
Michaela Maas
Kelly Booth
9/29/2011
A New Beginning
It was a warm, pleasantly windy day in early August. It was Wednesday night, and I was taking my dog, Sammy, for a walk with my parents. We were quietly chattering amongst ourselves, when a loud, gruff voice broke the silence. “Hey!”, a man cried out, startling all of us. We turned abruptly, and saw our neighbor signaling to us. As we crossed the street to talk to him, we approached a heavy cloud of smoke. I hoped he wasn’t going to spend a lot of time talking with us, already the smell of his cigar was nauseating. His voice broke my thoughts, “Have you heard the news about Jean?”.
I was immediately taken aback, wondering what could have happened to Jean. We weren’t close friends with most of the people in our neighborhood. Sure, we waved to them if we saw them pass by, but we never really stopped and talked to any of them, except Jean. Jean was a 94 year old widow who lived five houses down from us. We first came to know her through my dog, Sammy. Whenever we took Sammy for walks and we passed by her house, she was often outside gardening. She would always tell us to wait right there while she got a treat for Sammy. Though she didn’t have a dog of her own anymore, as her dog had passed away a number of years ago, she bought dog treats just for the neighborhood dogs. She loved all of the dogs, but she always told Sammy he was her favorite dog. Before long, we were good friends with Jean. We shared stories, prayer requests, hugs, laughs, and smiles.
I was bought back to the present day remembering that it was Wednesday, the day Jean always went shopping for food at a local grocery store. Though she was old, she was sharp witted and quick thinking. She always insisting on driving herself to the store.
My neighbor spoke up again, “She got in a bad car accident this afternoon. Doctor’s say she has a crushed ankle, collapsed lung, several broken ribs, might have broken a spot in her skull and spine, and probably more.” He let a moment’s pause slip in between, then continued, “It’s real bad. It’d be hard for someone her age,” here he stopped and pointed to me, then continued, “to recover from something like that. But, well... she’s 94 years old, don’t know how much longer she has left.”
Then it struck me. She was old. We really didn’t know how much longer she had left. Why hadn’t we listened to her stories more? Why hadn’t we baked cookies for her and shown her more love? Why hadn’t we done that for our other neighbors? Even though most of our other neighbors weren’t as old as Jean was, their life could be taken in a split second as well.
So, saddened by the news, I baked cookies for her. My mom suggested making a card for Jean, and having everybody in the neighborhood who knew her sign it as well. I loved the idea, so I quickly got out some card making supplies and got to work. Before long, I had a decorated poster with room for signatures. We grabbed a container of rainbow colored gel pens and set out, ready to have people sign it for her. I thought it would be a quick thing. I was wrong. At each neighbor we stopped at, we talked for at least 30 minutes, normally longer. Each person was delighted to sign the card for their friend, as well as share stories with us and have several intent listeners. This time, I didn’t mind if the person signing the card had a thick smell of cigar smoke on them, I loved that they were taking the time to talk with us and sign the card.
As the day came to a close, and the sunset got lower and lower into the sky, until you couldn’t see the beautiful pink and blue raspberry colors anymore, we headed home with a poster full of loving signatures. A few days later, we visited Jean in the hospital, my hands full with our poster. We had given our cookies to her son to give to her, so she had already gotten our cookies. She was delighted to have the poster, signed not only by neighbors, but also signed for all of the neighborhood dogs, and had us set her poster right where she could see it.
Jean soon moved to a rehab center and was doing much better, much to my relief. But through all of that, Jean had set a beautiful example for me. She had shown me how important it is to love your neighbors. She was close friends with everybody who lived by her, unlike us. She showed love to them, gave the little kids cookies or candy, gave cards to people when they were sick or injured, and even bought treats for their dogs. Because of her, I now believe it’s important to love your neighbors. You don’t know how much longer you’ll have with them. You don’t know what sort of struggles in life they’re going through, unless you love them and show them you care.
