Blessings on the road ahead --Carolyn R. Wilker

Our neighbours across the street have sold their home and will be moving away. Seniors in their 80s, they've gone to Florida for winters for many years. We have come to know them over time as we talk about gardening and other matters of concern to both of us. Today we will celebrate with them as they prepare for a new step.

My husband and I grew up in a rural community and were used to knowing our neighbours, even when they lived a half mile away. Neighbours might work together in threshing groups and share a combine or they may help out someone struggling to get crops in when circumstances prevent that owner from getting it done, whether illness or accident in the family. The community becomes like an extended family, such as in 1979, the year my parents’ community banded together to help those who endured losses after a devastating tornado.

When we moved to the city, on account of my husband’s job, we soon learned that city people operate a little differently. While they live closer together, residents do not necessarily mix. We found, though, that where there were children, families tend to talk a little more and watch out for another child. And the time our car got stuck on a snow-clogged street one of our first winters on this street, residents came out of their homes to help dig out our car. I was most grateful.

We met two neighbours the first few days we moved to our current home, one when our daughter borrowed a can opener so my mother and aunt could make lunch for the moving crew. The second, on the day after our move, when our next-door neighbour came to welcome us and introduced himself. We would have to wait until Easter when our snowbird neighbours from across the street came home from Florida. Eventually, I crossed the street and said hello.

 When we built our workshop, the gentleman across the street would come over from time to time to see how things were going. And thus relationships began to build.

Then as our grandchildren came along, his wife began bringing back small surprises from their trip for our small ones, and I would take the children over to see her sometimes.

In times past, before Internet connections and cell phones make long distance communication possible, when a family was moving away, their neighbours might never see them again. Someone might say, “God go with you,” on what could be a perilous journey across the ocean, to a far-off land.

So too, today, in spite of advances in travel, we do not know what tomorrow will bring. We, too, send off our visitors from our door with a handshake or hug, wishing our guests a safe journey.

And so this afternoon, I will host a gathering in honour of our neighbours who are moving. We will have tea, lemonade and some treats along with time for socializing with one another. We may not say good-bye forever, necessarily, but we will mark this change in their lives. Thus I share my thoughts through an Irish blessing, the tune in my head as I write. It offers peace and well-being and the message, “God go with you.”

May the road rise up to meet you

May the wind be always at your back

May the sun shine warm upon your face

And rains fall soft upon your fields.

And until we meet again,

May God hold you in the palm of His hand.

If you'd like to hear the melody, go here. 

Appreciating the Past in the Present - MANN

As I pulled the hot bread from the oven on New Year’s morning, in preparation for the pot-luck dinner at our neighbour’s later in the day, I was reminded of past years. I thought about my Mother’s assortment of bread and dinner rolls that she’d place on the cupboard counter ready for the family feast. I looked out the kitchen window to the snow covered hay field and in my mind’s eye could see the red cutter and black horse that brought my grandparents across the field for the goose dinner. Funny, how memory gives one the gift of love and comfort at a time when we are far removed from the generation and century.

This feeling stayed with me during the day as each step I took placed a landmark of memory in view. As I walked up the shovelled path to our neighbour’s house, he flung the door open and shared words of welcome and blessing. Immediately, I saw the large Christmas tree recently hauled from the back bush, filled with a history of Christmas ornaments to tell the old story. The Century farmhouse soon filled with friends and relatives of all ages. The children played at our feet while the men sat in one area to talk about feed prices and ways to get the Massey tractor started and the women talked about recipes, Afghans and new babies.

As I heard the words of thanksgiving for the food and people who’d gathered for the meal, I couldn’t help but reflect on my Grandfather’s few, but meaningful words of gratitude that he’d share at such times. Isn’t it nice when good experiences always connect with other fond memories of the past? It has a way of bringing what might be forgotten into the present to once more enjoy and be strengthened.

The chatter and laughter, teasing and joking filtered down the table, along with the tragedy of pig farming at this time and the corn still standing in frozen fields, having to wait until spring for harvesting. This wove in through the more serious discourse at my end of the table which had developed into theological and psychological conversation. I became aware of the wonderful diversity of people at such a gathering as this and how entering into the areas of interest of those with whom you’re seated, offers a wealth of personal appeal.

As the sun lowered in the sky and the shadowed fell across the front veranda, the children, who had dressed warmly to play outside following the dinner, began to feel cold and retreated into the warm house, covered with snow, revealing red cheeks and noses. Then as lights were slowly turned on here and there around the room, more coffee and tea poured and the hands of the clock turned yet another hour, most of the adults continued to sit at the table to talk. When we finally moved back to the couches and easy chairs, the conversation continued with the same enthusiasm, and I brought my knitting out of its bag.

It wasn’t long before we were invited back to the table with, “Come on and eat up the leftovers.” I noticed how we all went to our same chairs we’d left only the previous hour, to finish a light meal. When we finally began to say our goodbyes to the younger ones who had to take their children home, and those who had to go to milk the thirty cows waiting in the barn, someone joked, “I wonder what we’ll have for breakfast.” What a treasure to live in a farming community amongst good people. This day held a reflection of the past, reality of the present and a promise of the future.

Donna Mann
Aggie’s Storms. The Brucedale Press
WinterGrief. Essence Publishing
NEW: http://stores.livingwordsmann.com