While talking with a cousin the other day, he said, “We aren’t good neighbors anymore.” I thought, “He is exactly right.” Often, we don’t even know our neighbors. An age old question is, “Who is my neighbor?” Well, it can be anyone.
Once upon a time, neighbors needed one another. Neighbors weren’t necessarily close in distance but were essential. They would stop what they were doing to help others.
A neighbor might make a five-mile trip in the middle of the night to deliver a birth announcement or rescue an expectant couple when the bridge was out. Neighbors gathered to help raise a barn, fight fires, help in the fields, brand cattle, sew and quilt, or make home repairs. They were there for funerals, weddings, tragedies, in time of sickness, and times of great joy. They pooled their resources, worshipped and fellowshipped together, and made time for each other even in the busiest of times. Neighbors were a necessity. They became friends and valuable treasures.
My great grandmother was such a friend. She was midwife to expectant mothers, doctored neighbors with her herbal remedies, and considered the matriarch of the community as well as her own family. They knew what it meant to be a neighbor and a friend.
William Butler Keats said, “There are no strangers here; only friends you haven’t met yet.”