Our sweet neighbor, Jet Leitner, died yesterday. We knew him a bit - would stop to chat when driving by, had visited with him a couple of times while building. He helped us with some grading work on the driveway, and from what we knew of him, he was a kind, gentle, older man, who lived alone. A week or so after we moved in, I made him a fresh loaf of sweet bread, and brought it by...with the intent to continue bringing him bread or baked goods every-so-often...just to reach out with neighborly love.
But things were so busy with unpacking, and trying to finish the house, and getting settled in...and then the baby was born, and I was so tired...and then it was the holidays...
And now it is too late.
I was up in the night soothing baby Serene, night-before-last, and noticed that his lights were on. His house is just up the hill from our property, and from the baby-room window, I can see across the field to his back porch & living room windows. Seemed odd, that his lights were blazing at 4 o'clock in the morning...but I shrugged it off, figuring he was having trouble sleeping or something...
As I drove in from Bible study yesterday at lunchtime, I was alarmed to see a sheriff's car at his house, and a slew of pick-up trucks, and several people on his porch. My stomach dropped, and I paused in the road, wondering if I should stop to inquire...but then I recognized the distraught face of his son, and quickly drove down & around to our property, certain that something terrible had happened.
I had a message at home, from a mutual friend of ours, asking me to check on him, because she had not been able to reach him that morning. She wanted me to call her back with a report. So I ventured back up to his place, and with a shaking voice, asked if everything was alright. His daughter-in-law confirmed that dear Jet had passed away in the night, there in his home. She stepped forward, asking me where it was we lived? I pointed down the valley, to the red-roof of our house poking through the trees.
"Oh!" she said, "You're THAT neighbor! Oh, he loved your bread..."
I cried then. Sobbed all the way back to the house, cried to the boys that we should have made him more bread, that we should have loved him better... My sorrow has been profound, not so much from the loss of Jet, because I simply didn't know him that well, but from the loss of an opportunity to reach out to someone with friendliness and care and Christ's love.
We had felt the desire, even the conviction, to reach out to him more. Many times Kevin & I had talked about asking him to come down for dinner, or packaging up some hot leftovers to bring up to him. Many times we had said, "we should make him another loaf of bread"... But the busy-ness of life always got in the way, and I always figured I could do it next week.
And now it is too late.
How deeply I regret this missed opportunity. How sorrowful I am that Jet is gone now, and I waited too long to bring him another loaf of warm sweet-bread.
This feels like the jangling of an alarm-clock, waking me from a comfortable sleep, where I was dreaming, cozy, unaware of the passage of time. And now I see that time marches on, as I sleep, as I remain unaware of or unresponsive to God's beckoning.
Oh God, awake me to the ways and places and times You beckon me to love others, to reach out, to serve! Open my eyes to the opportunities you are placing before me, to share Your love, to reach out with kindness, to serve someone in need!
Comment by Julie North on June 2, 2010 at 8:21pm 
Comment by Kristin on March 17, 2009 at 12:29pm 
Comment by Todd Zeller on February 3, 2009 at 5:10pm 
Comment by Kim Leitner on February 3, 2009 at 4:50pm 
Comment by Bruce Caldwell on February 3, 2009 at 3:32pm 
Comment by Community on January 30, 2009 at 9:14am 
Comment by Adina Henderson on January 29, 2009 at 5:07pm 
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