Forget me.. not

This is a story of a woman who is near and dear to my heart.  I met her when I first moved to my community almost 27 years ago.   I was recently sifting through old photographs and stumbled upon a picture of a bouquet of tiny blue flowers I had picked from the backyard and immediately thought of her. These tiny blue flowers that emerged every year in the long grasses, bring with them the perennial memory of our dear neighbor. She offered the seeds for these flowers in a small plastic sandwich bag tied with a twist tie in the early spring of our time living here. This was her way, I would quickly learn as she arrived at our door with a very firm knock and purpose. The flowers were a nice addition to the yard and were of little maintenance as was our relationship that continued to bloom.  These were the first of many gifts of the heart, I now refer to them as.  She would bring grocery bags filled with mesh onion holders, bread ties, cotton from pill bottles, ribbons, cut out pictures from cards, and numerous other recyclables for my daughters to create crafts.  She was truly the number one earth ambassador and a great role model of living lightly on the earth.  Her kindness extended to the girls with special coins at Halloween and welcoming spring gifts of chalk, skipping ropes, and more.  We also received vegetables from her garden and access to her enormous supply of rhubarb plants each summer. 

Initially as a newlywed and then the working mom of two, I may not have always appreciated the gift of Barbara as our neighbor and friend but as the years moved on I saw what a special part of our lives she had become.  It was not only her kind gestures that created this relationship but the sense of community she created for us.  Knowing she and her husband were always looking out for us and later in their aging years, the privilege we had, of looking out for them.  They were our first experience with being a part of a collective of people living in proximity to each other and that being enough to share kindness, and ourselves, reciprocally. 

We are continually connecting as communities of people sharing a feeling of fellowship with others as the result of sharing common attitudes, interests, and goals which are so important for all of us but when I reflect on memories of Barbara, I see the community that she created as equally if not more necessary for us to thrive and move forward in the places we put down roots and our global communities. We need to be able to share humanity with people that may share nothing more than a plot of land near us. We need to be able to arrive at the physical and metaphorical door of a stranger and offer ourselves to them.  This offering can just be the seeds of  mutual respect and  support,  

Barbara moved away to live closer to her daughter after the death of her husband and last year, she too passed.  I didn't get the opportunity to see her in her final years but  I know that where ever she was she would have been connecting and creating a community for herself and others.  

Coming back to the perennials,  she so gracelessly offered,  I am reminded of one of our last summers as neighbors. Barbara was well into her 80's at the time and joked about how it was harder to remember things.  She asked me if the flowers were still coming up and searched her memory for their name, which neither of us could recall at the time.  I assured her I hadn't yet killed them and she headed back inside her home with a chuckle.   When I stepped back inside, it was only a brief moment before she was knocking at my door.  Barbara was laughing and calling my name. She said," Carolyn, I remember what they are called now, Forget Me Nots !" and we both ended our day with a huge belly laugh.  

Barbara reminds me that it will not be the political structures, sweeping changes, or influential people that will help us rebuild and transform the meaning of community for us to thrive, but it will be you and me standing at the door of a neighbor offering the seeds of our humanity that will change the landscape for all of us. Dearest Barbara, I will forget you not.