meeting a perfect neighbor

Just when you think you have slipped anonymously away from the old home town, up will walk a perfect neighbor and greet you warmly.
The man of my life and I decided to celebrate the holidays in a city closer to our far flung children. We resigned ourselves to a quiet Christmas day with one son as we waited for the rest to join us.
I packed food for a small holiday dinner, lots of presents for our group celebration and we headed to Branson, Mo.
Early Christmas morning I woke to the overhead pitter-patter of little feet that sounded an awful lot like my grandchildren – whom I would not see for another couple days. I sighed enviously and went back to sleep. My husband left for an early morning stroll and met a young man from El Dorado who recognized him. He said that he and all of his in-laws, including the parents and the children who had attended church, camp and school with our children – had rented two apartments in the same building – one floor up and one next door to ours. The patter of little feet had been their grandchildren racing to check out their gifts.
We stopped by to say Merry Christmas but did not stay – their grandchildren were waiting for their grandparents to join them in opening presents. We went to church, checked out the community and missed their attempt to invite us to join them for lunch. We did, however, manage to get together later that night when their cousins – who lived nearby and who also grew up in church with our children – stopped by to visit. Our son remembered that more than 20 years ago he had had one of his first dates with the only girl cousin.
That chance meeting reminded my husband of our dating days in northern Indiana. He wanted to take me to Moody Bible Church in Chicago, so he asked a substitute to take the one student he thought would be in his Sunday School class on that holiday weekend. He didn’t need a substitute – we looked up at the balcony at some point and saw her sitting there above us with her parents. Her father shook his finger at us to behave because he was watching.
I don’t know who was checking up on whom last month when my husband, son and son-in-love attended a Razorback game at the Alltel arena in Little Rock but they sat behind an El Dorado business man whom my husband knows. The next day, that same man and his family sat down beside us in the restaurant we chosen for lunch and the two swapped comments about the previous night’s game.
When I mentioned our ‘you can’t leave town without a friend showing up’ experiences, the circulation manager agreed. He said that he and his wife had gone on a cruise where they just knew they would not see anyone from home – only to look up and see the school superintendent and his wife on the deck above them. Last week, they had just commented that they had finally made a day trip out of town without seeing a familiar face, only to bump into the superintendent’s daughter.
“Boy! you can’t get away and do nothing you aren’t supposed to do,” the circulation manager jokingly grumbled.
He’s right. If you think you have left town alone – you can be sure a perfect neighbor will show up to remind you otherwise.