A Year of Blogging: July 11, 2011

July 11 was 'Cheer Up the Lonely Day'. My mom used to tell us she hated nursing homes because she felt like she spent her whole childhood in one. My grandfather's parents both had several sisters who never married, or married but never had children. Grandpa was the oldest of his generation, and he took the responsibility for the aunts as they aged and needed more care. Most of the Aunts lived in town near Grandma and Grandpa, and were moved to nursing homes when they were unable to live alone. Grandma and Grandpa took care of them and ran errands for them, which meant Mom went along. When the Aunts were moved into nursing homes, Grandma and Grandpa went to visit them on Sundays, taking the girls with them. Even though Mom didn't have pleasant memories of such times, she followed in her parents' footsteps. When I was a child, the neighbors were mostly elderly. There were a few houses with families like ours, but many of them were elderly. There were also a lot of elderly people in our church. Some of them had no children, others had children who were deceased, and still others had children who didn't come to visit. So we took care of them. My sister and I went to the post office every day, and we got the mail for half the neighborhood. If they needed something at the store, they caught us before we headed out on our walk, and we picked that up too. When we brought the mail, it was never a matter of 'here's your mail, Mrs. Smith'. We ended up talking for a few minutes. They wanted to know what was going on at school, how our parents and grandparents were. We'd talk about anything, they just enjoyed having company. Even the neighbors who were still mobile and had cars would flag us down and invite us in for a glass of lemonade in the spring or a cup of hot chocolate in the winter. There were always cookies. 'Sit down for a minute dear, have a cookie'. I didn't realize then how much it meant to our neighbors. We did it because we were raised to be polite, and to help others. I did enjoy helping our neighbors, but I know there were times I wished they talked a little less. As we chatted, I would think of the homework piled up in my book bag, wondering how I'd get it all done in time to watch Doogie Howser, M.D. Looking back, I know there were some days that my sister and I were the only people some of the neighbors saw. Knowing that we brightened their days, even for a few minutes, is a good feeling. Our parents taught us a valuable lesson, one that made us caring, concerned adults.