Sometimes, you finish a year or two of JVC and you realize it wasn’t what you expected. The community didn’t turn in your best friends for life, and while you’re happy you got a husband out of it and all, you just thought it would be a little different.
Then you get a call and a text and a message to find out a man had died. A good man, one that you knew. Who lived next door to where the JV house used to be, years ago.
And you call your one housemate who lives in New York, even though you haven’t talked in, gosh has it been a year already. And you run across town to hug your other former housemate and friend. And you cry, and you talk, and you hug.
You wonder if anyone has told your husband’s aunt and uncle (who live across the street from the couple), who met when she did JVC in the house next door. You wonder if you’ll see your professor at the funeral, who also used to be your landlord, and lives in the next-door house now.
And you realize that maybe its a pretty small town after all.
So then you talk, and you remember. You remember the man who had a harder life than you’ll ever know. A man who would always ask you how things were going at the shelter you worked at, start talking local politics with you, and was usually more up on everything than you were. You remember a man who had an apple tree with so many grafts on it, he had forgotten what kind of a tree it originally was.
You feel blessed to having known a saint during his time on this earth.
You remember the pie that he had baked that set on your counter when you first moved here. How you ate it for dinner late that night and breakfast the next morning before you found your way to a grocery store. You eat the sweet cherries and the cakey crust.
You put down your fork, and think to yourself – this is something big.
This is community.
This is the side of small town life that I miss.
It is a gift to recognize and appreciate community. It is where you find God in one another…and where you are given the opportunity to pass your blessings on. Imagine all of the people who have and will continue to pass this man’s pie and kindiness on…We are all like that apple tree….
Oh, my, can I totally relate to your first paragraph! Sorry to hear about your old neighbor. May he rest in peace.