We have been friends with our neighbor immediately to our south ever since we’ve lived where we do now…going on 18 years. Sharon and Rick have been good neighbors for us, and we hope they feel the same about us.
Rick and Sharon were the developers
and contractors that built all of Shelly’s Orchard Addition where we live. There are three or four basic home designs in
the area. The houses are well-built,
sturdy, roomy, and the neighborhood is quiet and peaceful. There is an HOA, but Rick is the only
officer, and he has chosen over the years to not be picky. We pretty much police ourselves in the
neighborhood, and get along pretty well, overall. We’ve learned that eccentricity usually is
not something that should be concerning to us, that other cultures can and do
enhance the “flavor” of the neighborhood, and that we indeed are our neighbor’s
keeper at times.
Rick has had ongoing, chronic medical
issues over the years, and is now in a care facility. Sharon is in good health and continues to
live at the house next door.
Yesterday Sharon was having a garage
sale, getting rid of some items no longer needed. I wandered over there before coming to work,
and we visited a bit. During the
conversation, she told me that she would be moving and selling the house in a
year or so. We visited a bit more, then
we excused ourselves and I came in to work.
On the way in, I thought about Sharon
and Rick no longer being next door to us.
Then I thought of all of the other changes in home ownership in the
neighborhood. Only a few of the homes
within a couple of blocks of us are occupied by the same people who were there
when we moved in. When those others
moved away, I didn’t think a lot about it other than we were going to miss
them, their kids, or some other aspect of their having been in the
neighborhood.
But when Sharon said she was moving,
it hit me a lot harder. Rick and Sharon
have, at least to me, been the anchors of the neighborhood. They have always been friendly, helpful, and
pleasant. The creators of the whole
addition, Rick and Sharon have provided dozens of families houses that have
become homes. They have provided new
neighborhood friendships. They have expanded
our world views. They have enabled Pat
and me to minister to several in the neighborhood, including them, when some
kind of need came up. Whether they
realize it or not, they have made the world a better place for many of us, and
have given us in these past 18 or so years the home we really needed at this
stage in life. The entire neighborhood
owes a debt of gratitude to them.
I also thought about the fact that in
life, whether we like it or not, things never stay the same. They always are in a state of change. Oh, one may not see any changes over a 24
hour period, or over a week, or even a month.
But change is there, slowly and surely doing its work. Life may appear to be rocking along in some
kind of constant mode, much like many of the comic strips in the newspaper era
did…no one aged…no one died…no one moved.
For those who remember, think Beetle Bailey. Think Blondie. Think Dick Tracy. Think Peanuts. But real life isn’t like that. We may appear to be like we were years ago,
but then suddenly, we see the change taking place right out in the open. We see the moving van backed up to the garage
door. We see the neighbors drive away
for the last time. And we know that
change has been constantly working over the years, bringing life to this point
in time.
And those thoughts brought me to
this: One of these days, Pat and I will
leave our home on Lydia for the last time.
We’ll either leave in a car, an ambulance, or a hearse. We’ll move to a patio home, a nursing home,
or some other place that we’ll do our best to make our home. Or maybe just one of us will leave to create
a new home. The other will have passed
on to eternity. And a new family will
move into the house we’ve enjoyed for these years, and they will then enjoy the
fish pond, the park, the neighbors, the fire pit, and all the rest.
I know this Thought has not been all
that upbeat. But that’s what I’m
thinking and feeling today. Life goes
on. Things change.
And, on a related thought, I thought
about how things naturally move, over time…sometimes a long time, into a state
of disorder. That’s called entropy, and
there’s a physical law which describes it.
It’s called, the Second Law of Thermodynamics.
Sir Arthur Stanley Eddington is quoted
as saying this about entropy, “The law that entropy always increases, holds, I
think, the supreme position among the laws of nature.” Unquote.
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