I debated whether or not I wanted to stop and share our Easter festivities, since I had no intentions of wanting to flash around things we do for other people, but I REALLY wanted to share the response we got from our actions.
My fiance and I, several weeks ago, decided that this year our Easter festivities wouldn't include egg dying, ham baking, or sweet eating. With family being so far away this year, we decided to share our love elsewhere. First, a background. For the entirety of our time living in this home and neighborhood, we have had the worst neighbors you could imagine. The selfish, obnoxious kind of neighbors. Neighbors with two teenage boys that harassed, insulted, degraded, and otherwise treated our teenage daughter like she was less than the amazing and good hearted young woman we see struggle in today's mean-spirited society. Neighbors with frequent uniformed officer visits, and with animals they let roam freely and terrorize the people and animals around them. Finally, the teenage boys took it a step too far, and they were forced to leave. Cue, new neighbors. After worrying that it would be a repeat of the last neighbors, we watched a young family with a large dog move in. Less than a week after moving in, the father actually came over late at night to let me know an opossum was eating our feral cat food. He was concerned because some of his relatives don't like when that happens, and wanted to make sure I knew. We did, and we intentionally help all the local wildlife, but the gesture was so sweet. Now, fast forward. As a work-from-home kind of gal, I get a lot of time to see what happens in the neighborhood. Every single day, there are routines of course. Every single day before the sun has risen, the father next door warms his work truck up and goes to work. He's gone all day long, and comes home clearly exhausted, and still takes time before leaving and after coming home to show love and affection with his children. He takes the two school-aged ones to school during the week, without fail. There were two solid weeks where the snow was so deep I couldn't make it off our steep porch, let alone go anywhere. To our surprise, and awe, he never seemed to fail making it to work. If we hadn't seen the horse-sized dog they had, we wouldn't know it existed. Always so quiet, so well behaved, so calm. In snow or warm weather, the kids come out to play. Never were there quieter, more well behaved children living next door. We were more than just pleased to have nice neighbors. We were so happy, so awed, to see a family that worked so hard and took the time to be kind to each other and their environment. So, together we decided we wanted to put together a surprise for them. With Easter on the way, we put together an Easter Basket for the whole family, horse-puppy included. We had chocolate eggs, huge chocolate and candy carrots, bunnies, sugar sticks, beans and coins. We had high quality, organic jerky for the puppy, and a giant collection of sidewalk chalk on the side. We put everything we could find that could possibly pamper a young family in the basket, and still wanted something else. At 4am Easter Morning, we snuck outside and hid 64 colourful plastic eggs full of jelly beans all around their house. There were eggs in the trees, on the statues, hidden in tufts of grass and sneaking behind the rose bushes. In one special, gold painted egg, we added $10; Enough the two older kids could share, if they wanted, but not so much the others would feel too sad they missed out on. And then we waited. For 12 hours [since, you know, we're quite early birds] we stalked the window, hoping to see the joy on the kids' faces when they found out the 'Easter Bunny' had visited. For a while, we were afraid the sun would ruin their easter basket, but we didn't want to alert them as to who had done it right away. We wrote a card, and that was what we wanted to be. The silent bunnies. Right as we had given up, we peeked out the window to see the back of a little girl, maybe 3 years old, bounding away from the final egg in a tree, basket bigger than she was in tow. Her smile was so beautiful, it made every freezing second of egg hiding that morning totally worth it. Then, the next morning, after a serious [see: Tornado warnings and shearing winds] storm, I went outside to check on the feral kitty that had just had her kittens. As I was coming back inside, there was a thick envelope falling between the porch and house. Trying to pick it up, the envelope fell apart. Inside the envelope, was the most amazing thing we've ever received. There was a hand-written letter of thanks and appreciation from the neighbors, and four hand-drawn pictures from each of the four kids next door, thanking us for the eggs, and candy, and hiding. We couldn't believe the beautiful things we had, and we laid them out to dry like they were made of soggy gold. So, while this post is long, the meaning is short. Show appreciation for those around you, and give those around you a reason to appreciate YOU. It feels way better than 200 likes on a post. <3
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Whut is?With this blog, you can expect to see reviews, impressions, tips, inspirations, deals, and more. If there is something specific you would like to see, don't hesitate to let me know! Instagram feedArchives
July 2020
Categories
All
|