Thursday, January 22, 2009

"To Make a Difference, Feels Good"

Last night, I received a phone call about 9p.m. from the lady that owns the house next to mine. This was actually only the 2nd time I have ever spoke with her. Anyway her name is Mrs. Jenkins. She is a 62 year old widow who lives alone in Cobb County. The funny thing is I have never actually met Mrs. Jenkins in person and we have been living in our house for almost 7 years now. Her house has always been a rental home since we purchased ours. There have been numerous families in and out of the house, with the last renters living there approximately 1 1/2 years which was nice. Mrs Jenkins son always comes down after any renters move out and examines the house and then has workers come out and do any repairs such as repainting, etc.. Well the house has been vacant since a little after Halloween but still I have yet to meet Mrs. Jenkins. About 2 weeks ago, her son was down again to check on things and came over and introduced himself, and wanted to get mine and my husband's cell phone numbers just in case they needed something beings they are about 3 hours away. So I gave him the numbers and told him if we could help in any way, just to let me know. So the next day Mrs. Jenkins called me. We talked on the phone for nearly 2 hours. She inquired about the neighborhood, how we liked living here, about the job market, and also asked lots of questions about me and my family as well. She seemed like a very sweet person. I learned through our conversation that she herself is in real estate, and that is actually how she stumbled upon the house next to me 9 years ago. She said she bought it with intentions of moving in herself and relocating. But sadly, before she could move her mother got really sick and she had to stay put to take care of her. So in turn she has been renting it out all of these years which she said has been alot of stress. She told me her mother has now passed and she is having mixed emotions about moving in herself, she stated that she has some possible renter prospects but still wasn't quite sure what to do. By this time...I felt like I knew her pretty well and she was a really sweet and kind person. So....last night she calls me again, I wasn't sure what she wanted at first because she just started talking in general about the weather and things like that. Then she went in to tell me how much she had enjoyed talking with me previously and what a nice person I seemed to be. That made me feel really good inside. She said she wasn't really calling for any particular reason, but just wanted to let me know that she had made the decision to finally move in the house and relocate to Tifton. She said " I am going to be your new neighbor, finally". I told her that was good news and asked her what made her make that decision now? She kindly said..."Well you helped me make that decision dear, you played the biggest part in that". She went on to tell me how the kindness in my voice and our long conversation two weeks prior had helped her make that choice. She told me that she could tell I was a good person, and she would love to have me as a neighbor. So last night and today her words have impacted me as well and I feel really good about myself just from the things she said to me. To know that I made that much of a difference really make me feel good. I guess the moral of this story to me is....Making a difference in someone else's life feels good. I am very happy my words helped her make that longing decision that she has been pondering over for months now. I also feel as Mrs. Jenkins and I are off to a great start with one another and I can't wait to finally meet her in person next week.

3 comments:

  1. Anyone who talks to you is going to want to claim you as a friend, Dawn. You have the sweetest disposition and are extremely caring in both word and deed. This is a well written testament to those facts.
    Honored to call you friend...
    John

    ReplyDelete
  2. I came back to see if everything got set up right. You are BRILLIANT! I especially like the ad placement.

    ReplyDelete
  3. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete