Happy Halloween!

LauraN has a story to tell on her neighbor; don’t miss it. And I bet I can guess who the benchpressing instigator was.

And now I’m going to tell you a story on my neighbor.

First, though, a memory.  Our last Halloween in New Hampshire, our toddlers were terrified every time I opened the door: no explanation of the concept of costumes made the slightest difference, and they could not understand how their own mother could continue to expose them to those, those, *things* out there.

The next year, in California, when the older two were now three and five, the five-year-old looked excitedly out the window and told her little brother gleefully, “Here come trick-or-treaters! Let’s be scared!”

Just a few years after that, there was a Halloween where our children all had the flu and, after all their anticipation of dressing up and playacting and getting candy, had to stay home.

We had a neighbor we didn’t see much, not a terribly outgoing sort, whose own kids were newly grown and gone.  We didn’t know she had planned a special surprise just for our kids.

But they never came to ring her bell.  Huh. Well, this wouldn’t do.

And so she finally rang ours instead: she had gone out and bought little decorated cardboard houses filled with the good stuff, one for each of our little ones, Halloweeny and celebratory to the max.

She had no idea they were sick. She had no idea how bummed they were that they had to be on that day of all days.  She had never thought to buy such a thing before, and come to think of it, she only did it that one year.

But our quiet neighbor, making an impulsive decision when she saw something cute in the store, decided it would be fun to be generous, and by so doing totally made their day when they most needed it.

And none of us old enough then to remember has ever forgotten that. Halloween always makes me think of her and those little boxes.