I have a neighbor who’s genuinely wonderful. He has a snowblower; I don’t. Whenever he clears his own driveway, he comes over and does ours too.
When the snow is coming down hard, I try to get outside first with a shovel. I’ve managed to pull on my boots a few times, but before I can even open the door, there he is, clearing our driveway with his gas-powered machine.
Every winter, I tell him he doesn’t need to do it. He insists he wants to, and when I mention it to his wife, she says I should let him. So I do.
Staying busy
I tend to talk with our neighbors more than my wife does. Maybe I’m outside more, or maybe I’m just more open to a conversation. Either way, neighbors have always ended up telling me about their families, their lives, and whatever else is going on.
This neighbor told me he raised three young children on his own after his first wife left and he got full custody. He said he learned to keep busy, and to clean a lot. These days, he’s still outside all the time, mowing, tidying up, or clearing snow. So when he comes over to do our driveway, I let him.
Now his children have children of their own. One of his kids recently had a fifth, and he and his wife spend plenty of time helping with the grandchildren. The other day, he walked me through their packed schedule. They pick the kids up from school, or maybe soccer practice—I can’t quite remember which. The point is, they’re involved and helping out a lot.
Kids welcome
He asks about our kids whenever we see each other, and he knows them pretty well. They’re outside often, and when they spot him mowing or taking out the trash, they run over to talk. They also climb trees and peer through gaps in his fence, even though we keep telling them to stop being little snoops.
He doesn’t seem bothered by our scruffy lawn, the toys scattered around, or the noise our kids make. He says he remembers what it was like.
We’re expecting our fourth child in January. He asked whether we’d stop after that or just see what happens. I told him we’d see. He mentioned that he grew up with five siblings, so he knows something about a busy household.
We got talking about birth rates and how less common large families seem to be now. We’re the only big family on our street. In America today, even three kids can count as a lot, which still feels a little surprising to say. We talked about the pleasures of growing up in a big family, sharing a bedroom, and all the small things that come with it.
He’s a good neighbor because he’s a good person. That’s probably the simplest explanation. Still, I sometimes wonder whether having children and grandchildren has made him especially patient. He isn’t grumpy or calling the police because our kids are shouting in the backyard. They’re outside having fun, not sitting indoors with an iPad, and he seems fine with that.
Full of life
It’s made me think about the less obvious ways families shape the communities around them. Of course, families mean more people in the future. But I suspect they also bring other things into everyday life.
Kids are noisy. They leave toys around, climb trees, and peek through fences. Grandchildren need rides to school and soccer. Sometimes a neighbor needs help clearing a driveway. With more people around, life gets busier and louder. It’s messier, too. More full of life.
Maybe some of the weariness that seems to hang over our culture has something to do with there being fewer families around. Life can feel awfully quiet, and so much of it seems to belong to the past. Maybe there just isn’t enough life happening nearby.
Or maybe being around other people’s lives helps us feel more alive ourselves. There are more conversations, more people who need you, and more reasons to leave the house and get involved. I’m not sure that explains everything, but it seems true enough in my neighborhood.
My neighbor doesn’t appear to mind. Whenever it snows, he clears his driveway, then comes over and does mine.
