August 13th – Neighbours

by annemariedemyen, posted in gratitude - August 2021

Dan worked the night shift last night. Everything seemed fine. Kat and I had a quiet evening until we headed off to bed at about eleven. At twelve thirty our doorbell rang and Kat hopped off the bed in a frenzy.

I followed Kat to the livingroom. As soon as I glanced out the window, I realized our Jeep was running. I have no idea why, but I suspect it has a wiring issue or some demonic possession happening. I looked out to our front steps and saw a big man standing on the landing. It could have been Dan – or our neighbour Liam, or possibly some random serial killer. I couldn’t tell. He saw me and pointed to our Jeep. Charades isn’t my strong point so I finally gave up and opened the front door. Fortunately, it was Liam. 🤗 Totally fortunate that it was not the random serial killer. 🥳 He told me that our Jeep had been running for quite some time and he had come to check on us. He offered to go shut it off if I would use the key fob to open the door for him. I did. He did. It was all good. 😁

I am so grateful that we have Liam for a neighbour. We do not know him well, but we chat from time to time and I know he is someone I could reach out to if I ever needed to.

We are fortunate that we have two kind and thoughtful neighbours on our block. There is Liam, his wife and their two adorable little girls who live two doors south of us, and there is Kim and her young exuberant son Kingston who live two doors north of us. Both are the kind of neighbours that anyone would want to have.

Having good neighbours is something I really appreciate and something I doubt that I will ever take for granted. Over the years, I have had a few neighbours who were great people and became good friends. 😊

I have also had a number of those ‘other’ neighbours who make us really appreciate the good ones! I didn’t think it could get worse than one neighbour I had in North Battleford. That was the guy who tried hitting on me as I was walking past his house. I was nine months pregnant, had a toddler and a tot in tow – and he was throwing up over the railing on his front steps. “Nope. I do not want to party.” 😳

Then we had members from a violent gang living next to us. The only thing worse than the noisy parties were the drug deals that went down in front of our house. The day after a couple of their guests got into a fight and ran into my car, they toodled off to a new neighbourhood. 🙂

The neighbour that bothered me the most was a miserable older man who lived next door to us. If I was outside working on a project in our yard, he would be sitting in his half-ton, on his driveway, adjacent to our yard. He would stare at me the entire time I worked. When I finished my task at hand, he would call me over to his truck to critique (criticize) my work. If I did not come out of our house to work on our yard, he would frequently storm over, pound on our door, and indignantly tell me what I should be doing outside. We went to his funeral a few years ago. I was not sad to lose him as a neighbour, but I was really sad that anyone would waste their life trying to control how others lived theirs. 😥

Anyway, I digress. This blog is about Liam and the neighbours I am, or have been, grateful for. Thank you, Liam! If I never have the opportunity to pay back your kindness, I promise that one day I shall pay it forward. 💞

Have a great day. Take care and I will see you tomorrow! 💞

May your neighbours respect you, troubles neglect you, angels protect you, and Heaven accept you.

– Irish Blessing

26 thoughts on “August 13th – Neighbours”

  1. I also like knowing in a pinch I’ve got good neighbors I can reach out too and they know I’m always here for them too. We all watch out for one another. I think many folks just don’t take the time to even stop and make any effort to get to know them. Craziness with that jeep of yours🤪. Very bizarre

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  5. Wow, you’ve had some truly rotten neighbors, Annmarie! How sad the older gent would try to tell you what to do with your property. Maybe he was off of his meds? My neighbors are good folks. We have Asian, black, white, and interracial marriages in here and everyone gets along wonderfully!

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  15. I could write a book! There would be an entire chapter dedicated to the day Dan had to scrape our 75ish lady (?) Next door off the sidewalk and roll her home in our wheelbarrow so the police wouldn’t take her to the drunk tank. I seriously wanted to die of embarrassment for her. 😥

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  17. Yes it is great that we have some good neighbours now – and yes we have had some disturbing ones. Plenty like your park ones. 😂. But my luck continued – we only burned through less than 1/8th of a tank of gas. 👍

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  18. Thank God it was Liam and not some random nut when you opened the door. We had terrible neighbors at our last home. They had parties all the time with loud music at night. They blocked our driveway with their friends’ cars. Almost 3 years ago we moved to our current home – and I love it. Most of our neighbors are over 50 and it is so quiet. Everyone is friendly and no loud music!

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  20. Good for Kat letting you know it was someone she knew at the door. Very nice of Liam to let you know about your jeep. It is very nice to have nice neighbors and I am grateful that mine are.

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