The Gift of a
Great Neighbor
by Nicole BurrellPassed from one home to the next, a box of
ornaments reminds a family of the bonds around them
M
y kids sit in Gee’s living
room and reverently lift
antique Christmas or-
naments out of a well-
loved cardboard box.
They gasp when they discover a tiny
stuffed cat. They giggle at Raggedy
Ann, who is a foreign character to
them. Gee stands beside them, qui-
etly explaining each treasure. She tells
me that she and Tom built their orna-
ment collection piece by piece during
each year’s after-Christmas sale. She
smiles as we leave with the box. Her
precious heirlooms, gathered overa lifetime, have found a new home.
We first met Tom and Gee in the
early days of our marriage. Someone
had been returning our garbage cans
to the garage each garbage day, and
Jim and I had wondered who. Then
one day we spotted him: an elderly
man who lived across the street.
I baked cookies and left them on
a stool outside the garage with a
thank-you note. When we got home
from work that day, a typed letter had
replaced the gift. The letter was from
Tom and explained how he had come
to walk the neighborhood on garbage
day, returning cans for people he
barely knew. Back when he’d been
fighting a war I wasn’t alive to see, his
young wife, Gee, had found herselfNicole Burrell is a Reader’s Digest
reader from northern New Jersey.36 dec 2018 )jan 2019 | rd.com illustration by Tracey Long
Reader’s Digest
LIFE WELL LIVED