Uncommon Kindness

Yesterday something truly inspiring happened. My neighborhood is full of nosy people who call the city if your yard isn't up to snuff. This particular man that calls on us lives five houses down and walks up to our home to stare at our yard. He doesn't do this to anyone else because we're the only ones that call him out. Anyway, we got one of these nasty signs in our yard saying we had five days to clean up the yard. This isn't such a big deal since there's like one patch of weeds that needs done.

It was blazing hot yesterday morning so I planned on going out and working when it was cool at night. About two o'clock I hear my neighbor's lawn mower get really loud. The nice neighbor across the street had been mowing his lawn all morning. Since he's an older man I was worried he hit something. As I look out my window he rides past on his lawnmower.

This sixty something year old man road his lawn mower across the street to mow my lawn. I was astounded. It's not everyday someone in this neighborhood helps someone out. I brought him water and thanked him and checked on him periodically from the window. He just kept going and going for hours on end. Finally, I heard him ride his lawn mower home.

Just as I was sure he was done he came back and cleaned out the space up by the drive. There are always chewing tobacco tins and trash from kids and he got them out of the drain. Now, by this time he had already been outside for two of three hours in eighty degree weather. I had to persuade him to go home and take a break.

When I asked him why he was doing this he said it was to repay my family's kindness. For years we had helped each other out and yesterday we got to see how much we had done for each other. When his mother still lived there we always made that house our first stop for trick or treating. My mother and her would talk on a regular basis and just shoot the breeze. She even mowed their lawn when our neighbor had a broken arm and wasn't able to mow in time to get a similar sign out of his yard.

Both family's have been uncommonly kind to each other in a world that forgets we all fall on hard times. I am grateful for his kindness and even more grateful that we've lived across from each other for these past seventeen or eighteen years. Sometimes we get frustrated and ask God things like why we live in such a hateful world. I've asked Him that a lot lately, but yesterday he showed me there is hope.

To my neighbor, thank you.