Tag: neighbors

The Politics of The Parking Lot

One of my original ideas about this blog was to share a little of our lives as a family of five (soon to be six) in a two-bedroom condo.  Hence the e-family tagline: “1100 square feet and counting…”

I’ve been more concerned with the inhabitants of said square footage up until now, but last week, something happened that really got my goat.  It was the straw that broke this camel’s back, so to speak.

Since we live in a building complex made of one and two bedroom condos, we are clearly (CLEARLY) the largest population in any one unit.  Side note: God bless our neighbors.

Most of my neighbors are single professionals or older retired couples.  Because of the second category, there are several who (deservedly) have walking restrictions which have led to some handicapped signage in our parking lot.  It started last Fall.  A dear lady moved in upstairs and due to her walker, the association handicapped two spaces (one for her car and the cross hatched secondary space for room to move her walker – because yes, she still drives).  Okay, cool.  She’s really sweet.  Then, within a week or two, up went another handicapped sign for the couple that lives above me (I know this because they put up the sign and then put the condo number on it so everyone knows it’s only for specific people).  And then there was a new lady who moved in down the hall and she got her numbered space, and then an older couple on the third floor, and this last week, another couple on my floor.  This officially takes the reserved spaces up to SIX.  Also, my neighbor on one side just started walking with a cane and the neighbor on the other side has a handicapped thing he hangs on his mirror, so I don’t think we’re stopping at six.  Stay tuned …

Do I sound stingy?  I’m sure.  Probably because I am.  Let me be very clear: I have no problem with handicapped people.  I love them.  Why does this particular situation bother me?  For this reason: out of the five people who have handicapped spaces, only two have any appearance of handicapping in a way to demand building-side parking.  In fact, the couple who got a handicapped space last week were the same people who were beside me performing rather intense labor as we unburried cars after the blizzard this winter.  I really don’t want to judge my neighbors, there are plenty of things that could be wrong and just not be apparent, but let’s just say that I’m definitely confused.

Here’s my hypothesis: due to a massive parking problem (our building has 28 spaces and 56 cars), people are applying to their physicians for “handicapped access”.  And physicians, not realizing that there could be more at hand than a sweet parking spot at the mall are signing off.

Which is why I have to park here:  in front of a building that is not my own …and walk back at least a mile (up hill both ways) to my building.  [please note the super cool “mom mobile”] Okay, in all honesty, this isn’t bad, and it certainly isn’t a mile.  It only gets uncomfortable when I have groceries, or when it’s winter, or raining, or it’s late at night, or there is more than one child that needs to be carried.  And in truth, we are more blessed than many in regards to the groceries because being in the first floor means that I can often drop off bags on my porch.

Isn’t it pretty?  I’d like to take zero credit for the landscaping.

I never realized how utterly spoiled I was ’til this point in my driveway-rich life.  Those with driveways, I urge you enjoy them.  Revel in every shoveling, black-topping, general maintenance moment!  Those like me whose lives revolve around parking lot politics … I need some input.  Is this normal?  How far do you have to walk from your car to your dwelling?

Craving perspective,

The Self-Appointed Fairness Police

The Hospice Angel

If you enter our building from the parking lot, it feels like the front, but it’s really the back, and you have to walk right by the laundry room before hitting the lobby.  We’re a very classy establishment.

I came in late on Monday night from an appointment, and saw one of my neighbors doing a little late-night laundry.  We chatted for a few minutes and, in the course of our conversation, she mentioned that she knew me and she knew the kids (everybody in our building knows my children … you’d have to be deaf and blind to NOT know my children), but that she’d never met my husband.

I said it was quite probable that she hadn’t, but then remembered that she had briefly met Bob on the morning after the blizzard in late January.  When I mentioned this, she looked shocked and said, “Oh my word!  He’s the hospice angel!”  This took me by surprise.  I have heard my husband called many things, but “hospice angel” has never been one of them.

Here’s what happened:  On the morning after the blizzard, Bob was home (as was half the state).  There were 3-foot-high drifts around our cars and we suddenly saw this neighbor trying to dig her little car out of the snow.  I should probably mention … since we have an outside service at our condo for snow removal, none of us keep shovels …something you really wouldn’t consider until you’ve spent 45 minutes unearthing your car with your floor washing bucket.  Anyway, if I remember correctly, she was using her windshield scraper to try and clear out the parking space.  What stood out to us was that she was wearing scrubs.  We figured she must be a nurse on her way to a hospital, so Bob had grabbed his coat, found a garbage can lid, and went to help her scoop the snow away from her car.  She got in to back out, got out of the space, and Bob came back inside.  End of story … or not?

Here’s what we didn’t know until Monday night.  Lourdes is a hospice nurse.  She couldn’t get to any of her patients that day because of the snow, but she’d gotten a call from a nursing home close to where we live begging her to come because nobody else could and they had a patient who was actively dying.  She told them that she would try and get her car out, and if she couldn’t do that, perhaps she could try to walk.  She told me that she was just about to give up when this guy with dark hair and glasses (Bob) seemed to come out of nowhere and helped her get her car out.  By the time she backed out of the space, he had left (having come back inside).  She said she’d never seen him before or since, but because of his assistance, she made it to the nursing home and was with the patient when he/she died that day.  The hospice and nursing home staffs still refer to her unknown helper as her “hospice angel.”

This is a crazy and rather humorous story, but it reiterated something to me.  I never know how helping or serving another person is going to be used–in their life or in my own.

I once heard John Piper address our understanding of the mind of God and now I wish I could find the quote … something to the effect that we see only one thing and God sees everything all at once.  In this tiny instance–how helping to get a car out of the snow ensured that a hospice nurse got to the bed of her dying patient.

When I thought about this, I felt a reminder to “Be ready.”

Are you looking for the opportunities that God puts before you to serve others?  Will you be ready?

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