Getting to Know Your Neighbor Can Become a Labor of Love

Cherry couldn’t find her phone. Her breathing was labored, and she didn’t feel great. She should have listened to her daughter and bought the alert button for the elderly, but she couldn’t get past her desire to appear independent and young for a little longer.

She looked out the open door and saw her neighbor from across the street watering her flowers, but she had never even spoken to the young twenty-something who seemed glued to her phone. Her neighbor had made some grand gestures, such as waving hello and even offering to help tote Cherry’s groceries, in her attempts to know Cherry. But Cherry paid no attention, believing that all the young woman wanted was to see her possessions and maybe come and steal them when Cherry was away from home. She knew a criminal when she saw one!

But, as her breathing difficulties increased, and with the young lady as her only hope, Cherry stepped out on her porch and waved her hands wildly to get the lady’s attention. When she saw Cherry, she instantly realized that she was in trouble, the neighbor raced across, dialing 911 as she ran. She told Cherry that the 911 operator had said that help was on the way. She took Cherry’s hands into her own, identified herself as Faith, and told her to relax, as her agitation was making it worse. When Cherry gave her a skeptical look, Faith explained that she was an emergency room nurse.

Faith stayed with Cherry throughout the ordeal, riding to the hospital with her, after locking up Cherry’s house and calling her daughter to meet them at the emergency room. Faith checked on Cherry every day that she was in the hospital, and, even though Cherry agreed to the alert button and wore it, her neighbor still came by each evening to check on her. Cherry called it a labor of love.

They became great friends, the seventy-something and her young whippersnapper neighbor, with no restrictions on coming and going to each other’s homes. Cherry realized that one is never too old to learn to trust others and to not judge others by how they look.

Written for the Three Things Challenge #845 from Pensitivity 101: Great, grand, and glue. Great prompts. I used also Fandango prompt is Instant. Ragtag Daily Prompt is Restriction.