Neighbors Next Door, and Everywhere

I don’t hold to the traditional definition that a neighbor is simply someone who lives next to you. For me, it takes more than just an adjacent address to qualify as a neighbor.

A little background. I grew up on a 200-acre farm in Calvert County (southern Maryland). My idea of “neighbors” was family: my grandparents, who lived about 100 yards away, and an uncle and cousins equally close. The only people I considered real neighbors lived on the next farm over. It was their friendship that earned them the coveted title of neighbor.

The farmer, Gordon, reminded me of Clint Eastwood. Tall. Lean. Honest. Tough but kind. He embodied that old-world notion of helping your neighbors. Each year, he’d let us borrow some of his corn-harvesting equipment. I think I remember getting tobacco seedlings from one of his small fields to plant in ours. And of course there were the countless times he returned cows that had gotten lose, helped mend fences, and lent a hand with whatever else we needed.

The highest honor my grandfather could bestow on you was to offer you a glass of his homemade wine. Gordon, naturally, shared many glasses with my grandfather over the years.

He is how I learned to define a neighbor as more than just the people who live next to you. It’s about sharing, caring, and being considered a part of the family. Now that I find myself living in a townhouse, I still hold to this definition.

Living in a townhouse, I now have a few dozen people living closer to me than my grandparents did when I was growing up. Out of all of these people, I only have one neighbor. I’m lucky and honored to have a neighbor like her. She (let’s call her Cindy) had a spare key when no one in the family did. She either let us (well, my then-wife) borrow her mower to cut the grass or she’d go ahead and cut it for us. Cindy buys Christmas gifts for my cat, Cookies. And back in the summer when I was sick and couldn’t make it to the store, she brought me supplies. These are just a few examples. I could go on and on.

I hope there’s a lot of Cindys out there. She’s definitely made my life better and knowing that she’s just a call or doorbell ring away, makes me feel better. If you have neighbors like Cindy, make sure you let them know how much you appreciate them.