Connecting
                                                                                               By Shena Newton
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I must confess, I am an avid fan of Facebook. More than just a means of communication, Facebook is for me a most welcome means of self expression as a wannabe writer. Until such time as I am able to publish, Facebook is where I’ll go to say, or rather write my piece in small doses. And the lovely thing about facebook is that I get immediate feedback. Facebook friends are generous with their compliments which encourages the writer in me to continue writing. Take, for example, my Facebook post this past December 15. The huge number of likes, comments and shares let me know that a lot of persons connected with the topic. The administrator of this website was among my many Facebook friends who connected with my December 15 post.  She invited me to share my Facebook post on her site, and I am happy to oblige.

 
CONNECTING WITH NEIGHBORS……this morning I had car problems. Rather than call my husband to come all the way back home for me, I decided to foot it to the bus stop, three quarters of a mile away, at Super Value Winton. Mr. Dames, one of my neighbors,  happened to be passing my gate at the same time, so I joined him on the trek to the bus stop. A few minutes into our walk, Mr. Brown, another neighbor, driving a shiny black car pulled alongside us, to say hello. Timidly, I asked if he wouldn’t mind taking us to the bus stop. Sorry, said Mr. Brown, and just as he was about to launch into an explanation as to why he couldn’t take us, it started to spry. We quickly got into the car. “This will be your good deed for the day,” I remarked to our neighbor behind the wheel. I hadn’t seen him in quite a while. “How is your wife?”  “Which wife you mean, my first or my second wife?”  “As far as I know, you only have one wife, how’s Mrs Brown ?”   “My wife? Man, my wife died almost two years ago. She was sick, you know, she had breast cancer.” This unexpected news left me feeling weak. I knew Mrs. Brown and her husband, just from exchanging the occasional hello, but I had no idea Mrs. Brown had been sick. And, now she was gone. I expressed my sincere condolences to Mr. Brown. In a few short minutes, my neighbor Mr. Dames and I were boarding the 15A at Super Value. On the bus, I felt a deep sadness come over me. It wasn’t a sadness from grief. I barely knew my deceased neighbor, but what saddened me was that my neighbor had been dead for two years, and I hadn’t a clue. Then and there a New Year’s resolution formed in my mind. I must connect with my neighbors more often. Contact with my neighbors is limited to fleeting glimpses as they get in or out of their cars. I have exchanged phone numbers with some of them in the past. Starting in 2016, this is what I’m going to do: every three months, I will call each of my neighbors in the immediate vicinity, to say hello, and to check in on them. Enough of the disconnect!