Humbled ... Again

Since moving to Kansas we have seen more snow than we ever saw in Colorado ... total. The cold here is a wet cold, a bone-deep-cold. While C was away I had to shovel the drive way - once for nearly a foot of snow and again for another seven-or-so inches. 

I mentally live in the world of flip-flops. 

Tomorrow it will be cold again - not a Colorado cold where you see kids wearing short sleeve shirts waiting for the bus in thirty-five-degrees - but a stay-in-the-house-because-thirty-five-degrees-feels-like-death cold. But today ... today was a strangely beautiful day of seventy degrees. 

For the first time since moving here, people were outside their houses.

I have hated this neighborhood. Convinced they put us in the wrong spot. That these people are weird. In frustration I have repeatedly commented on the lack of welcome, the in-hospitality, the failure of anyone to say hello. I have waved to strangers with no reciprocation. I have grown more and more frustrated as I noticed the family across the street has a little boy Eli's age who is even in his very small preschool class. 

I have repeatedly told C that I wish anyone would just say hello. 

Today the doorbell rang and I jokingly said "Maybe someone wants to finally welcome us to the neighborhood."

I opened the door and the family from across the street - who I have been most critical of - stood there with a newborn baby, and a plate of cookies, and their son who is in Eli's class.

Their newborn baby.

And their son in Eli's class. Their son who is severely autistic. 

And they were standing before us apologizing for not making it over sooner. Offering to help if we ever needed someone to take Eli to or from school. Standing there giving us a plate of cookies, juggling two kiddos on our porch who both needed attention.

Humbled. 

Knee-bendingly humbled. 

Again.