Little Things Mean A Lot

This is harder to do than it looks. 

I got up at 6 this morning.  I walked 2 miles.  Then I came home and prepared food for a neighborhood going-away party - a couple that has lived here since these townhomes were built (over 40 years ago) is moving closer to their daughters, several states away.  I don't know why it took me several hours to whip up some batches of hummus, lay out cheese and crackers, and cut up fruit; but it did.  Then we had the 2-hour party, which lasted 3-and-a-half hours.  I staggered home around 7 and collapsed on the couch.

Tell me, since when did I become this old person who can't have a busy day without feeling destroyed by it?  Add to that fact that I still have Brian's lovely illness, an illness whose symptoms increase the more tired I am, and I feel as though I have one foot in the grave already.

Have I mentioned how much I am going to miss my departing neighbors?  The woman is my buddy from this humiliating trip to Harris Teeter.  I refer to her as my personal trainer, because she would show up at my front door 2 or 3 times a day to invite me to walk a mile around the neighborhood.   I always accepted, because I can't let an 80-year-old woman best my not-even-50-yet self in the physical fitness department.

Sometimes?  I had trouble keeping up with her.

When Rachel was 6 weeks old (almost 10 years ago), Larry's father lay dying from a stroke.  Larry - naturally - hurried to his father's side, 12 hours away, leaving me with a 5-year-old, a 2 1/2 year-old, and a new baby (not to mention Theo and Anna).  People, this neighbor of mine made a point of stopping by every evening to help me.  She would either hold the baby while I bathed the little boys or else she would read to the little boys while I took care of the baby.  Only another mother can understand what a big difference that small bit of help made in my day.  She earned my undying gratitude from that point on.

Moral of this meandering blog post: It's the little things we do that matter.  Don't pass up a chance to do the little things.  Don't expect that someone else will think to do them.  You know, my neighbors really appreciated the party we gave them.  That mattered, too, much more than I had thought it would.


[Fruit bowl image: Taste of Home]

[Little things image: Sodahead]