One year ago this week, we in South Florida were visited by Hurricane Wilma, the twenty first named storm of the season.  This year, as I fly in and out of Fort Lauderdale airport, I can still see some of the more visible remnants of her visit, the once ubiquitous blue tarps on the rooftops of houses and apartment complexes.

With five weeks to go in the season, it seems as if the collective wishes of the southeastern United States for a less turbulent season seem to have been heard.  As I look back over the past year, some of what I thought would come true with regards to the sudden unity of our neighborhood has come true. I knew that our little group of once isolated neighbors, sharing ice, nailing tarps and cleaning debris would again drift apart once the electricity came back on and everything went back to normal. Some have moved away and the rest of us wave and smile when we drive by each other on the way home after work. Some of us are closer than before and visit on a regular basis, but for the most part things are as they were before the fences came down. I really don’t regret this turn of events, because we are all a little more comforted that we have discovered we can count on one another when the “chips are down”. We have created our own little neighborhood informal care team and know that we will not be alone if the need once again comes about. Which is all one can ask of a good neighbor when trouble strikes.         

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Take care

Gary Barg
Editor-in-Chief
gary@caregiver.com