Good neighbors (by Tara)

I was paid the highest compliment possible from my neighbor, a teenage boy, recently. He said, "Mrs. Collins, you are just one of those people...one that I would call if I were ever stuck in a ditch." Ha! I gave him a hug and we both laughed!

I wonder if he knows that there was a time a few years back that I was so concerned for him I lost sleep. I prayed. I cried. I wanted him to know what an amazing kid he was, but he wasn't ready to let me in. Slow and undaunted, time seemed to mock my efforts. Yet at the stories end, I see how perfectly timed it has been. I hope this never happens, but I am armed and ready to pull him out of that ditch should he ever fall!

My young friend Bobby has an equally amazing dad. His wife shared an email with me that epitomizes a change maker. Here is that email:

Hello Mr. Sill,

My name is Anthony Strait, we met a little over a year ago in an airport in Texas. I just came across your card that i have been looking for for some time now. At the time we met I was on my way to Arizona from Afghanistan to see my family and you had given me your seat on the plane so i could get home earlier. At the time i could not thank you enough and to this day i still think about you and how generous you were in doing so. Now that i have found your card I wanted to reach out to you and thank you again for that. Since my return from my deployment there has been challenging times for me, stress and a number or negative situations but when i feel like that, that the world is now filled with self centered people who do not care, i think about that day and it gets me through my situation. Little things we do in life can have a big impact in some one else's. Thank you again Mr Sill for being a good person and teaching me a life lesson.

Sincerely, Anthony Strait

Wouldn't it be nice to be surrounded by people like this? I hope you are. And if you're not, maybe you just don't know it. Isn't this a great time to turn a neighbor into a friend? We have much to learn from them.

Bobby & me bowling with our friends

Billy with his baby girl