There is something we
experience that I like to call "Drive-by Neighbors". Where you are
walking or biking or driving by someplace every single day, and you notice
little things. Which other people are noticing about you, too. People in your
community, who you may not have met, or maybe passed by at the post office, Or
the grocery store, the library.
There is a house about a mile down the hill from the mountain range I live on, that I never really noticed, until last year , when as we drove by, I noticed a couple had come out on the small front stoop, one of them in a wheelchair, to sit in the warm morning sun.
In December they had a really nice Christmas tree all beautifully alight in their front window, which remained there until April.
We all know that when those things happen to us, when there's something a little tough going on.
They then put one of their cars out front to sell.
This spring, driving by, somebody started putting together a big beautiful silver metal wheelchair ramp, and often, there was an older person, who came around to mow the lawn and do other yard work, and finally pulled out the Christmas tree.
With the ramp, the person in the wheelchair started coming down the ramp, sitting in the yard, and the sunshine. They had lost one leg.
Pretty soon there were so many beautiful hanging baskets of flowering plants hanging from all parts of the ramp,
But here's the really cool thing .
They got a motorized wheelchair. And now? You can't stop them.
Course, when we're driving in that area, all of us from the neighborhood are learning to take care, because the chair is black, and they don't have any big noisy flags waving around or anything. Come dusk, very nearly invisible.
Still, there they are, out there, zooming along.
Down the street, even across the little makeshift lights by the bridge that's half closed off. Without a thought, insisting the traffic stop, and wait, they scoot across that tiny space. To the other side. To go explore. To go out. Out.
Once they started zooming around on their new motorized wheelchair, when I drove by, I would imagine what it might've been like. Not to drive. Not to go around by themselves out in the world. All those months without even a ramp.
But that's done now. Every single day, rain or shine, they're out there, working on their yard, pulling things around. Cutting things. And then zooming up the road at some speed, lickety-split.
This morning when I went by at 6:30, they were out there. With a bucket, and a broom, sweeping up the side of the road in front of their house. Looked tough to maneuver. And it looked like they didn't care. Nothing stopping them
Just makes you feel all kinds of respect. Just makes you smile.
There is a house about a mile down the hill from the mountain range I live on, that I never really noticed, until last year , when as we drove by, I noticed a couple had come out on the small front stoop, one of them in a wheelchair, to sit in the warm morning sun.
In December they had a really nice Christmas tree all beautifully alight in their front window, which remained there until April.
We all know that when those things happen to us, when there's something a little tough going on.
They then put one of their cars out front to sell.
This spring, driving by, somebody started putting together a big beautiful silver metal wheelchair ramp, and often, there was an older person, who came around to mow the lawn and do other yard work, and finally pulled out the Christmas tree.
With the ramp, the person in the wheelchair started coming down the ramp, sitting in the yard, and the sunshine. They had lost one leg.
Pretty soon there were so many beautiful hanging baskets of flowering plants hanging from all parts of the ramp,
But here's the really cool thing .
They got a motorized wheelchair. And now? You can't stop them.
Course, when we're driving in that area, all of us from the neighborhood are learning to take care, because the chair is black, and they don't have any big noisy flags waving around or anything. Come dusk, very nearly invisible.
Still, there they are, out there, zooming along.
Down the street, even across the little makeshift lights by the bridge that's half closed off. Without a thought, insisting the traffic stop, and wait, they scoot across that tiny space. To the other side. To go explore. To go out. Out.
Once they started zooming around on their new motorized wheelchair, when I drove by, I would imagine what it might've been like. Not to drive. Not to go around by themselves out in the world. All those months without even a ramp.
But that's done now. Every single day, rain or shine, they're out there, working on their yard, pulling things around. Cutting things. And then zooming up the road at some speed, lickety-split.
This morning when I went by at 6:30, they were out there. With a bucket, and a broom, sweeping up the side of the road in front of their house. Looked tough to maneuver. And it looked like they didn't care. Nothing stopping them
Just makes you feel all kinds of respect. Just makes you smile.
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