On Being a Good Neighbor...

Hello, friends!

A few nights back, I got a voicemail from a phone number that I didn't recognize. It was after 10 and I was getting ready for bed but my general rule is that if someone leaves a voicemail, I'll check it right away. Usually, it's a telemarketer but since it was also a 402 number, there was a chance it wasn't spam. When I checked the voicemail, it said, "This is Ricci. Your garage door is open."

Ricci is my neighbor from across the street. The reason that he had my number was because the day before, I wrote my number in a book that I gave him as a present at a party. The party was the one year anniversary of when I saved his life.

Literally, from the first moment that we moved to Omaha, Ricci has been a great neighbor. On Moving Day, I was driving the moving truck and Meg had the van with the kids. I got there first but she had the house keys so I was locked out of my house. I also really had to pee. After walking around my backyard a few times to see if there was a private place for me to go to the bathroom (there wasn't), I walked across the street, knocked on the door, and said, "Hi, I'm Adam, you're new neighbor. Can I use your bathroom?" Ricci and his wife Cammi were super kind and let me use their bathroom.

Since then, our interactions were sparse but cordial. If we ever saw each other outside we'd say hello. He was usually working on one of his cars and I was usually taking the kids for a walk. E, their youngest, would come over with his friends and their bikes so I could put air in their tires. Our kids are too young to play much with them but we've played a little football in the front yard. Ricci helped me fix my snow blower and has shoveled our driveway and sidewalk on more than one occasion. He and his family really are great neighbors.

About a year ago, on Superbowl Sunday, Megan was out of town in New Orleans for National ISM Team meetings. We live only a mile from church so my general rule is that if the weather is decent, we should walk to church. The temperature was in the 40's and there was fog but no rain. I went back and forth on whether or not we should walk but decided that things would be OK so I strapped the kids in the stroller and got ready to go, 20 minutes earlier than if we were driving.

Heading down our driveway, I noticed that Ricci was working on his car, as he usually was. I turned the corner to head down the road when I heard a yell. I stopped, told the kids that we were going to check on Uncle Ricci, and turned around. What I saw was Ricci pinned underneath the car. I left the kids strapped into the stroller, ran across the street, and called 911. While on the phone with 911, I banged on the door to let his family know what happened. While waiting for emergency services to arrive, I found a bigger jack in his garage (it was open) and jacked up the car so it wasn't on top of him anymore. I didn't want to move him in case he was seriously hurt and moving him would make things worse, so I waited for emergency services. The cops, EMT's, and firemen all arrived. They pulled Ricci out from under the car, loaded him up on the gurney (he was unconscious but breathing), and took him to the hospital. After Ricci's family left for the hospital, the cops stayed around to get my account of the situation. At that point, I asked if I could go check on my kids who were still across the street and strapped into the stroller. I gave my statement to the police, then finished walking to church.

You want to hear something crazy? Ricci had no broken bones or anything. The jack slipped on the car he was working on and it must have rolled on him. He has no recollection of anything that happened but there were no broken bones or internal bleeding. All he had was a pinched nerve and a few weeks of physical therapy.

So that's why we had a party! I had been talking to Megan about whether or not it would be weird to wish Ricci a "happy anniversary" but in the mail a few days later we got an invitation to a surprise party for him and that question was answered. I got him a book, wrote him a note with my number in it, and the next day, he called me to tell me my garage door was open.

Being a good neighbor isn't about the size of the acts that you do. It's possible that I may have saved Ricci's life but that doesn't make me a better neighbor than him. When I think about all the ways that he's helped and blessed our family these past 2 years, I'm so thankful to have such a wonderful neighbor. I'm hoping that we'll be able to bless his family in the same way that he's blessed ours for years to come.