Several years ago on Thanksgiving morning my family and I were getting ready to head out to a friends house to enjoy a Thanksgiving meal and plan our attack for Black Friday shopping.

To our dismay, we noticed a lot of bubbling water at the end of our driveway and it had been raining for several days so we did not think much of it.  However it seemed as if it was a lot of water all of a sudden so my husband went to check what was happening and sure enough the pipe connecting the water company meter to our pipe had burst open.  We had no idea who to call so we were trying to figure out how to repair it, when a neighbor came along and saw what was happening.  This person took several hours (about 4 all in total) out of their holiday to help us get our pipe fixed just because his son knew our son.  We were so terribly grateful and when we offered to pay him, his response was simple  “No thanks, that is what neighbors are for”.

Now fast forward about 10 years I receive a call from someone wanting to get their resume done, I set up a time to meet them and when we meet we realize the connection.  Now I proceeded to gather all the normal information for the resume and actually start working on it a little while we are talking.  When it came time to leave he asked me what does he owe me.  My response “No thanks, that is what neighbors are for.”  He smiled and said he felt he should pay something,  my response was “you already did and you do not realize how much we appreciated it.

It just feels good when you get the opportunity to pay it forward to the same person who helped you when you needed it.