It has been fun to recall so many things from over the years. I can recall my childhood. I can recall things from when our children were little. And I can remember a lot of details of things you would think I would forget. But I cannot remember something from yesterday or last week. I guess that is typical.
The last two or more weeks Laura and I have been bringing in the mail and newspaper for our neighbors that were on a vacation. We have always liked doing things like this for our neighbors. We are blessed with good neighbors and they have been our friends for many years. I baby sat for their children many years ago. Now we are all grandparents.The babies I cared for have children of their own.
The reason I write about this is because I just called to welcome them home. Jake asked me why I did not take any food from the refrigerator. Oops, I forgot to get the food that would spoil while they were gone. That is a real example of forgetting. We would have enjoyed the strawberries and we always need milk. I suppose they would not be usable now. Wish I had not forgotten them. And we had a planned power outage one day so it is a sure thing food would spoil. I hope their refrigerator had not been unplugged as things would get real bad. I doubt they unplugged it though. They would have things that they had planned to keep.
We remember these good neighbors from the very first weeks of living on this court. They had two little children then. Colin was born the week we moved into our house, the last week of August in 1973. Little Alison was two and a half years old if I remember correctly. After a few months I became their baby sitter when Jan went back to work as a nurse and Jake was on deployment. He was in the Navy at the time. Over the years we had a good arrangement of me caring for the children and I was like a grandmother to them. They finally got too big for baby sitters.
There were other neighbor children that I cared for in the early years too. I still have contact with some of them as they still live on this block. I knew Kelly as a tiny baby and she now has her own children. I have watched her children grow just as I have seen Alison and Colin's children go from being babies to school age and even be teen agers. There are others in Kelly's family that I have watched grow up too, such as her brothers and older sister and her nephews.
We had other neighbors we were close to over the years. It is a blessing to be in the same neighborhood for so many years. There are new families on our court now and I try to be the good neighbor when I have opportunity. I don't do child care at this time so I miss that chance to know them. But I try to welcome each new neighbor. I also share avocados when Griff brings them to us. There are usually too many for one family. We have other chances along the way too. And they do special things for us.
Our next door neighbor Sergio has been the owner of his house since the seventies too. We knew several families that lived there before he did. He rented the house out for one short period of time. But he has been back for years. His mother lived with him for a number of years. Mary was a dear lady and she lived to be ninety years old. We miss her being there. Sergio misses her a whole lot more. We have known families with new babies in the house next door, and we have known Mary who lived her last days there.
One family I baby sat for in the 70s and early 80s lived on the next block, facing our court. There was Eric, a spitting image of "Beaver" from "Leave it to Beaver." The next son was Brian, a busy little boy and a friend of Colin. They were little when I first knew them. Then they got a baby sister, Christina. She was one of my babies for some time when I baby sat for the children. They eventually moved and I have only seen them briefly in the years since then. I will always remember them fondly. They have families of their own now.
We have known families that went through divorce, some while they were in our neighborhood and some we heard about later. We have seen many babies arrive on the scene in our neighborhood, and we have seen even more children grow up and have families of their own. Sadly we have seen a number of families face cancer. I remember at least three families suffering loss. I heard that there was a death in the neighborhood before we ever lived here. These were almost new houses when we moved here. We were the second owners. Triplets lived in this house before we did. This was "the triplets house" till the children got used to it being the Marvin's house.
We were warmly welcomed to this neighborhood while we were moving in on Labor Day weekend in 1973. Several neighbors came over and made us feel welcome. Those ladies became my friends that fall and through the following year. One moved away the next year but I stayed in touch with her for years. She and I used to take walks together. She also taught me to make egg rolls. The other friendly lady also became a good friend and we try to stay in touch. She also eventually moved, but still owns the house.
We have to get used to new neighbors and change. Some changes are actually good. I really like my court and appreciate my neighbors. I have not mentioned all of them. there are a lot of memories over these many years. I was just thirty six when we moved here and I'm seventy four now, and use a senior pass on the bus.
We have several special neighbors that know the Lord and feel a special bond with them. God is so good to bring us to this point in our lives. This house has seen many large family gatherings. There have been times of gladness and times of sadness for us and our neighbors. I thank God for providing this place for us. :)
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