What You Never Knew

So many of us cross paths with people whose lives we never knew that we touched. How many people made an impact on our lives, and they will never even know?!

I had moved in with my parents immediately after my car accident because I needed so much hands-on help. They ended up moving to a new house, in the city, closer to my siblings and doctors six months later. I’m the type of person that would normally try and go meet my new neighbors. At that point, I could barely leave my dark room because I had such difficulty with light and sound. I certainly wasn’t handing out Christmas cookies that season and I still don’t know most of my neighbors.

Around six years ago, a nice, older lady moved into the house next door. The only reason I met her is because we shared a fence. Since I rarely left my house, my back yard was one of the few places I went to get some “fresh air” when I felt strong enough to leave my bedroom. One day she was on her back deck, which overlooked my backyard, and so I introduced myself to her and “welcomed” her to the neighborhood.

I found out her name was “Lin.” She was widowed a few years prior, she had also moved to the city from Woodland Park, and she shared my faith in Jesus. She was close to her kids and grandkids (who all lived nearby and that’s mostly why she moved). We laughed when we found out we were from the very same neighborhood in Woodland Park. We would have had many years that overlapped living there at the same time.

It was a tranquil, mountain neighborhood with a lake and dirt roads. When I found out where she lived in that neighborhood, I realized I would have had to drive passed her road all the time to exit the neighborhood. I was probably one of those annoying teenage drivers, blowing up dust and blaring my music. But I was a Jesus Freak so I also would have been the kid who was respectful if I had met her in the neighborhood. All those years went by in that mountain neighborhood, and I never met her or her husband. I wish I would have. Now, she lived next to me and I only got to hear her mention her hubby in memories she would sometimes share. She was his caregiver before he died.

 As Lin and I would chat, she’d sit back on her deck and soak in the mountain view. She’d cough and puff on her cigarettes while her German shepherd “Kota” would bark at my cat who was roaming my yard. If the fence wasn’t there, my cat, “Tayla” would have been an appetizer!! But the animals seemed to entertain each other with the boundary in place, staring at one another, while Lin and I chatted. 

Lin would always ask about my health. I think it pained her to see someone her grandsons’ age with health problems similar to her own. But she and I laughed and shared a lot in common because of it. We’d joke about the physical therapists, the doctors, the vitamins, and treatments that were constantly being suggested to us as well as the unending amount of insurance paperwork that had to be done before anything was approved.

Many of the treatments we’d try, others we had to weigh out, research, and pray about before putting our bodies through them. We both wished we could snap our fingers and see which treatment worked but that’s not how this process operated. We had to be the ones walking through it, making these decisions, and pushing our bodies to keep going through each physically painful day.

She may have had a raspy voice from smoking, a habit she told me she “knew she should quit.” But it was one of the few pleasures she had left when her body wasn’t working, she was in constant pain, and she was limited in what her body could do. I understood.

I’d often go months without seeing her, especially in winter. Then Spring would come and she and I would both peep our heads out for that fresh Colorado air we needed. I often was in my PJ’s cause I had no energy to get dressed. I was just sick and knew I needed to make myself get some fresh air. Sometimes we’d just wave at each other, not having the energy to talk, each retreating to our alone time in the backyard, neither of us feeling well. Other times we’d be busy with our families, her with her grown kids and grandkids- me with my siblings, young nieces and nephews.

We both were at different stages of life. She raised her kids, saw her grandsons grow into adults, watched her husband die, and was still pressing on. I never had been married or had children. I was actively part of my siblings’ lives and often the “playful auntie.”

Lin and I may have been in contrasting seasons as far as age but we shared an understanding: not being able to be what we once were. Health stopped us from working, attending family events, being the strong one for your family and friends. We had become the feeble ones. I could tell she was once an independent person, as was I. Now we counted on the people we were strong for, to take care of us. How humbling that was, yet, how loved we felt.

I never saw her laugh the way she did when her grandsons were over. I never met them. I would just hear her laughing on her deck, I’d look over and see the joy in her eyes, she genuinely thought this joke or statement was funny. I’d talk to her the next day and I’d always find out it was her grandkids that were over. I understood. Nothing can give you joy like your loved ones.

About two years ago, my parents and I were alarmed when we saw the ambulance lights out our window. We realized they were there for our neighbor Lin. I watched out the window and prayed, as the paramedics pulled her on a gurney and wheeled her into the vehicle. Tears filled my eyes. I had never even shook Lin’s hand, given her a hug, or been over to her place. I had only had these friendly chats from my backyard to hers.

However, she survived that night. She made it back home but her health had made a turn for the worse. It was rare she went onto her deck, with her dog, to smoke a cigarette and enjoy the mountain view. My parents started getting her mail for her and leaving it at her door (so she didn’t have to walk down the stairs to her mailbox) for even that had become too difficult for her.

A few times I would wave at her or say “hi” but it was less often between her limited health and mine.  

Today, I found out that Lin died about two weeks ago. She’s with Jesus. She’s been reunited with her loved ones in heaven. I was stunned. My “neighbor buddy” is gone. I am grieved that I won’t have those chats with her again. I won’t hear her laugh or hear her talk about her family. I won’t have someone who “gets it.” She never told me what to do with my health. She never said, “If you just try this” or “That” it will “fix you.” She knew it wouldn’t.

She knew I was in a broken body, just as she was. She understood we were in a fallen world. She understood Christ was the one thing we could count on. That was evident to me in our chats, in the way she treated me, in the way she saw life. She cared deeply. She was strong. She was a fighter.

I always thought, “One day I’ll be healthy enough to walk over to her house on my own and chat in her living room.” But one day never came. My health never caught up to those goals. Neither did hers. And even though I probably haven’t seen Lin in about 6 months, my eyes are filled with tears because I will miss her.

She made a difference, not because she said the “exact right thing” or because I saw her all the time. But because she cared, she was genuine, and I sensed that. She was real about the world. She didn’t give me false hope or empty promises. There was compassion about my situation and I had it for hers. We laughed together. We related.

It made me realize if we are doing that for the people around us, whether it is our families, coworkers, people online, or the literal neighbors we talk to every few months, it can make a deeper impact than we know.

Love isn’t about being perfect. It’s about caring deeply. It’s about giving of ourselves, relating, showing compassion, giving what we can, when we can. Smile at the neighbor. Send that text “just checking in.” Make the phone call when someone is going through a tough time. Message someone that encouraging thing you thought they might need to hear. These things do make a difference.

We can’t run ourselves ragged being everything to everyone. But we can look up from our phones and look at the people around us in the eyes. We can make the people around us feel important-because they are important to God.

Lin did that for me. She never even knew she made a difference in my life. She didn’t know that when she died I would grieve. But it’s because she was an example of this. It reminded me that being intentional about loving others, neighbors, strangers, and family is more important than the things happening on social media, the news, or our personal goals we get distracted with.  

Colossians 3:12-14

^“Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you.And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity.”

1 John 4:7-12

“Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.”