I spent a good ten minutes at the lunch table yesterday grousing about my dentist’s staff although I tried to disguise the complaint as a factual account of their mistakes.  Even as I bent Miranda’s ear, I laughed at myself. I’m not supposed to complain!

So here’s a bookend brag about the kindness of my neighbors.  From Debbie Black who checks on me without fail, to Chris Morgan who has hoisted me from the ground where I’d fallen, to Scott Vaughan who did the same and also raked my leaves this week, I have some of the most extraordinarily generous and thoughtful folks around me.

I came home too tired and late on Thursday to take the trash out.  When I hurried outside yesterday morning hauling the trash, I stopped and gasped at the sight of my bare lawn.  The piles of leaves in which I’ve fallen several times no longer crowded the porch steps.  The bare maple rises above the yard, no more crackling leaves to drop, wearing her frailest winter branches.   The wide expanse of lingering grass beneath the tree awaits the January snow.

Many nights bear down on me with burdens that feel insurmountable.  When I fall in my basement; when I can’t heft the laundry basket down the stairs so the clothes collect for weeks without being washed; when I stand amid the clutter without energy to clean — desolation overwhelms me.

When my son came home for Thanksgiving, he told me that he wanted to help me.  And  help he did:  he cleaned the house, and cooked, and drove me everywhere I wanted to go.  He brought the comfort which my neighbors give me every day, that Scott gave me; that Debbie and Chris give.  The kindness of neighbors.  The knowledge that someone cares.

It’s the third day of the thirty-sixth month of My Year (decade?) Without Complaining.  Life continues.

My neighbors Scott and George, on their wedding day.

 “Best Neighbor Ever” award goes out to Scott today!