“Neighbors bring food with death and flowers with sickness
and little things in between.” ~Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird
What makes a good neighbor? Based upon various studies, it
seems that good neighbors tend to have five distinct qualities in common:
compassion, consideration, friendliness, helpfulness, and understanding. Most
people, however, are not very good neighbors and, in fact, are rather lousy
neighbors, namely because they are simply too caught up in their own affairs to
pay attention to the people who live not just next door but on the same street
or, much less, in the same community. There are, though, those rare exceptions
who are good neighbors, and among them are Marshall and Sandy Bardelmeier.
In 1995, my husband Chet and I relocated from Georgia to
Louisiana when Chet accepted a position in the History Department at the
University of Louisiana at Lafayette, and after leasing a house for
approximately a year and a half, we purchased our current home in Holiday
Gardens, one of the older, more established neighborhoods in Lafayette. It
wasn’t long after we moved in that we met Marshall and Sandy. I have forgotten
the exact circumstances of our meeting, though I seem to recall that they
simply walked across the street and introduced themselves, which would be the
kind of thing they would do. They are, after all, very friendly people.
Since
that initial meeting, Marshall and Sandy have played an important role in our
lives. In fact, I don’t know what we would do without them. They have always
been there when we’ve needed a helping hand. For instance, Marshall, a man of
many talents, taught us how to use a generator, which is a necessary skill here
in hurricane country. He also built our screened porch, installed new flooring
in our kitchen and dining room, and constructed our storage building in the
backyard, doing all the labor for much less than anyone else would charge.
Plus, since Chet, a man of letters, is totally helpless around the house,
Marshall is Johnny-on-the-spot whenever anything needs to be repaired. Not that
his neighborliness stops with us, for I am constantly glimpsing his green Dodge
Ram pickup around the subdivision and know that he is helping someone else. But
that’s just the way he is; Marshall helps other people.
Sandy is just as goodhearted and caring. She makes her
delicious homemade soup for us when we’re ill; she offers to drive us to doctor
appointments when we’re too sick or unable to drive ourselves; and she brings
us little unexpected gifts just because she saw them in a shop and thought of
us. She also helps other people in any way she can, yet her compassion similarly
extends to all God’s creatures. For instance, each year she collects everything
from furniture to clothing to glassware to toys, stores the items in their
garage, and then donates them for the spring yard sale benefiting the local
no-kill animal shelter.
Marshall and Sandy have also put the joy back in
holidays for us. When Chet and I moved to Lafayette, it wasn’t easy living so
far away from family. (Lafayette is over 750 miles from my hometown of
Fairburn, Georgia, and almost 1,500 miles from Chet’s hometown of Buffalo, New
York.) Of course, it still isn’t easy. In the beginning, though, holidays were
especially difficult to bear, but thanks to Sandy and Marshall, that is no
longer the case. Holidays are no longer lonely affairs but once again special times
of the year.
For example, I believe it was during our second
year in this house that Marshall and Sandy asked us to join them and their
family for Thanksgiving, and after that first invitation, they invited us again
and then again. Now, it’s become tradition. Every year we spend Thanksgiving
Day with the Bardelmeiers: Marshall, Sandy; their two sons, Darrell and Duane;
their daughter Debbie and her husband Theophile; plus, their grandchildren and,
recently, great-grandchildren. Marshall and the “boys” always deep fry at least
two turkeys (It’s a Louisiana thing), the table groans beneath a mouthwatering
array of delectable dishes, and we celebrate the holiday with our neighbors, laughing, talking, and sharing our thankfulness for the blessings of life.
And,
indeed, Chet and I have been blessed. We have been blessed with good neighbors.
But then, Marshall and Sandy Bardelmeier are much more than merely good
neighbors. As Eleanor Roosevelt once said, “Many people walk in and out of your
lives but only true friends leave footprints in your heart.” The Bardelmeiers
are true friends, they have left their footprints in our hearts, and I am
grateful for them each and every day of my life. Yes, they are neighbors. Yes,
they are friends. More than that, though, they have become family.
