The Kindness of Neighbors

I originally wrote this post shortly after Christmas, but in the holiday and flu recovery shuffle it never made it out of the draft folder. A recent round of extremely snowy weather reminded me, and I thought I would dust it off and post it. (We are now fully flu recovered.)

We are still recovering from the flu here at Mindful Meerkats, but the weather has been cheerfully indifferent to our plight. Thus I recently found myself shoveling the over half a foot of snow that landed on top of the preexisting foot of snow.

While it was tempting to ignore it, I had places I eventually needed to go. When I don't have a lingering illness, I actually enjoy shoveling. I've always been fond of snow, and even though it is inconvenient as an adult, there is still a part of me that has retained a childlike glee over snowstorms.

This time around the snow was fairly light, but we have an absurdly large driveway.

I was trying to free my car alternating with bouts of coughing loudly when our neighbors (ones that we aren't particularly close to and don't know very well) came over with their two snowblowers and cleared out the whole back of our giant driveway, including all the heavy plow leftovers. They had helped us out last year, too, for no other reason than just being kind. When they were done at our house, they headed down the street to help out some other neighbors.

As I finished shoveling what was left around my car, I reflected on the kindness of my neighbors. I haven't written here at all about the recent tragic events in CT and other parts of the country, because it is so overwhelmingly big and sad. But little acts of kindness give me hope. I am so grateful that our neighbors came over to help. They didn't have to at all, but they did.

I try to hold on to the little things like helpful neighbors, loving friends and family, and even smiling strangers. Put more love into the world, even when it seems hopeless.