The kindness of strangers

Mom's home from the hospital as of a few days ago, although "home" right now is her sister's house. I'm staying in my cousin's room (and I love love love her bathroom, which is like my favorite room in the whole wonderful house--when I grow up and have my own house, its bathroom will be like that one). Mom's doing much better; we even went out to see the new Harry Potter movie the other day, which she loved. We'll probably see it again next week.

My aunt's house is across town from ours, which sounds like a long drive except that we live in such a tiny village. It takes me about three minutes to get from one house to another. This afternoon Mom settled down for a nap and I ran home to get some stuff and attempt to tame some of the yard. I haven't had a chance to mow in almost a month, much less weed the garden.

Well, when I pulled into our driveway I was shocked to see that the lawn was newly shorn. And when I parked in back, I saw the neighbor across the street on his big riding mower, finishing up. I'd never even met him, but he said he was a good friend of another of my cousins when they were young, and he was out mowing his yard and said he decided to get ours at the same time.

There's been so much kindness shown to Mom and me over the last few weeks, it's overwhelming. Mom keeps exclaiming over the unbelievable number of cards she's received, all the flowers and notes and emails from people wishing her well. I told her that if only we could harness all the goodwill, we could probably solve the energy crisis for good. Clean goodwill energy for all!

I wonder if I can persuade someone to weed my garden for me.