A Tribute To Our Tribe
The winds of change have swept through our homes and our neighborhood this week, leaving us a little bit hollow and restless. A piece of our tribe is moving on to a new home in another town. Toby and Amber were some of our very closest friends before they ever became neighbors. Almost seven years ago, when Matt and I were still newly weds, we moved into a 1976 airstream parked on the White’s 40 acre homestead. Those two years felt impossibly surreal and illogical in all the best ways. We spent many evenings in their living room worshiping with acoustic guitars and tambourines and watching movies piled on mattresses on the floor. We did ridiculous things like attempting to ski down their driveway during an ice storm and racing each other on tiny tricycles in their front yard. We didn’t have a lot by the world’s standards, but we were rich in everything that mattered.
After Matt and I moved across town and eventually found our now home right next door to my parents, the house behind ours came available for rent and we convinced Toby and Amber to reach out to the landlords. Shortly after, they became our neighbors, once again, sparking the inspiration for the The Space We Share. We would hop the fence often after babies went to bed and set our monitor in the one spot in their house that carried the signal. Monday nights were our evenings together for a long time. At one point, my dad found an old ladder on the side of the road and placed it between our two yards to make the short trek over less of an obstacle course. Early on, my parents built a chicken coop in their backyard, and the three families would trade off weeks gathering eggs and tending to the chickens. It was the urban homestead dream, until the spring rains left the coop a perpetual swamp and our chickens went on a laying strike, taking some of the magic out of the whole arrangement.
On birthdays and holidays and sometimes for no special reason, we’d eat at the large farm table my dad built, breaking bread and catching up on our long days. We’d end the evenings around the fire pit or talking through movies (ahem Toby) in one of our living rooms. When the Whites began their foster process, we were given a front row seat to meet and love on each new baby that passed through their homes and hearts. And while our presence was no substitute for the heartache that would ensue each time they had to say goodbye to another child, there is a comfort in knowing you aren’t facing your trials alone. When one rejoiced, we all rejoiced; and when one mourned, we all felt the tears.
For a while, though, life got busy—our schedules each crammed full with work, church involvement, softball games, and baby raising. Many Mondays came and went where we wouldn’t see each other. When COVID hit, many people around the world felt the effects of loss of community. But our experience was little bit different because we all ended up quarantining together. Matt lost nearly all of his gigs over the past few months and Toby was furloughed in the spring, forcing a much slower pace for our families. What we lost in income, we gained in precious time together. Time that turned out to be a gift, because only God knew Toby and Amber would be moving just a few months later. For nearly two months, we saw each other every single day. One of us would plop our boys over the fence to run around while we planted in our gardens and planned what meat we’d throw on the grill that evening. I won’t pretend things were perfect. There were a lot of unknowns and the loss of work was less than ideal, but God provided generously during a season that would have otherwise brought nothing but isolation and fear.
While their new home is still less than an hour away, there is a finality to this season of life lived as neighbors that’s causing all of us to grieve a little bit more deeply. I pray one day soon we find ourselves in a season just as sweet where we can wave across the fence again or run over to lend a hand on a whim. For now, we will have to rely on intentionality to see each other regularly and keep our group text thread perpetually open. As for the blog, we will continue to offer up our stories and our hearts. We may no longer share a yard, but what we do share is much more precious and permanent. We are eternally bound by a love not threatened by time or space.
Here’s to this new space we share, a one far less transient, and to our forever tribe.
