Don

I had lived in my house for about 14 years before I met Don; he had lived across the street for a few fewer years than that. One time, when his garage caught on fire, I'd stepped out to see what was going on and talked to his wife for a few minutes, but it wasn't really a proper introduction. We were strangers, 40 feet apart. 

Then one day, Don knocked on my door. 

He'd been sitting on his porch (which he loves to do) and noticed some big holes in the siding of my house. The recent hail storm, he'd said. He went on to explain that he was a contractor and had spent his life in construction and that he'd be happy to help out with that if we wanted him to, but even if we didn't want him to, he wanted to make sure that we knew our house had been damaged, and he suggested starting with our insurance company, who should cover everything. 

Not often looking at my own house from the angle Don sees it, I hadn't noticed the hail damage. Upon further inspection, it was pretty significant on the front and west sides of the house. So we took him up on his offer, talked to the insurance, and contracted Don to do the work. He was already fixing the other neighbor's house from the same storm. 

That one conversation turned into a job for me - I became Don's assistant when the other kid he'd hired for the summer refused to show up because it was too hot outside to work. Not long after that, I became his house-sitter and dog-sitter. For years, he would call me when he had a job and needed an extra set of hands. We often hung out on his front porch or in his garage, always taking the time to shoot the breeze with each other when we saw each other outside.

He became one of the references that helped me to get the job that I now have. 

Several years after we first met, Don was sitting on my porch with me and my mom, drinking a beer and just relaxing, when he raised the beer a little bit in the air and took his fingers off the bottle to kind of point at us. "You know," he said, "When we first moved in here, we thought y'all was uppity." 

We all had a good laugh over that one. (Then, of course, he confessed that we're far from it.) 

We've exchanged favors for more than a decade now. Chatted. Traveled together. Don took me out to meet his mom one day (he needed something out there for some extra hands). He's met my grandma. We talk about the dogs, the kids. He stops in the middle of the street and waves at me in the mornings when I'm out walking my Thunder and he's on his way to his post-retirement job. We text each other when we need help...or when we see something on the street, but we're too lazy to go outside. 

It's a friendship I treasure a great deal (both with Don and with his wife). And none of it would have ever happened if he hadn't taken the chance one day to walk across the street and knock on the door of the family he thought was probably uppity. 

So every time I see him - which is quite a bit since he still lives right across the street - I'm reminded of the things that can happen if I push myself aside and go offer myself to someone new. Go knock on a door. Go point out something I see that maybe is in their blind spot. Go offer my assistance, from something I'm good at or know how to do, to someone who might have never done it before. 

My neighbor taught me to walk across the street. 

And more than a decade later, I'm still doing it.