Recently, Jill and I have been trying hard to get to know the people around us. We live in a little 8-plex apartment and within the past month or so, we have had about six vacant apartments filled with new neighbors. We have gone out to dinner with one of the couples, have had the girl downstairs over for dinner, and tonight we had our two neighbors from Central America over for dinner. I've really enjoyed meeting our new neighbors and becoming friends with them.
We had a lot of left over brownies after tonight's dinner. So we decided to take them to the last neighbor's house who we haven't had the chance to meet yet. They just moved in and from the sounds of it, they didn't know too many of the neighbors.They seemed pretty happy to meet me...or....maybe they were happy to get some delicious peanut butter chocolate chunk brownies. Either way, I'm glad that I was able to reach out to our neighbors and bring them something nice.
Reflecting back on my childhood, I remember doing this same thing around Christmas time. That year, my family was trying to think of who to do the "12 days of Christmas" for. The "12 days of Christmas" is the concept of giving a gift to family member or friend for each of the 12 days before Christmas. That year, we decided to do the 12 days of Christmas for my aunt, Yvonne. She was about 80 years old or so and lived alone. Starting on the 14th of December, my family would bring a gift each day to my aunt Yvonne all the way up until Christmas day. When we left a gift, it was usually just me, my brothers, and my sister. We would quietly tip-toe from our car up to her front door, knock on the door, leave the gift and hide behind her fence. It was funny to us kids how Yvonne would always look around her apartment door for the person dropping off the gifts each night. Little did we know how much of an impact it had on her. Within the next year, Yvonne passed away. As our family was cleaning out her apartment, my mom stumbled across a letter that was written by Yvonne. The letter was intended for her "secret friends" who dropped off gifts each day leading up to Christmas. Tears filled my mom's eyes as she read the letter that was written out of love for these "strangers."
It's amazing how a small unanticipated gift can bring someone so much happiness. A couple of brownies from me to my new neighbors may seem like nothing. But who knows, maybe those brownies are just what they needed.
No comments:
Post a Comment