Blessings From Next Door
Talk about good neighbors. Teresa Carlisle’s neighbors did more than just watch her house when she went out of town last week--they renovated it.
Carpet, plumbing, paint. New furniture and new blinds. From matching throw rugs in the kitchen to framed prints on the walls, nothing was overlooked.
“I walked in and just cried,” said Carlisle, 39, who returned home in the middle of the night, unaware of the surprise beyond her front door, which had been adorned with a white bow. “I still can’t believe it. Just look at it. Just look at how beautiful it is.”
To Carlisle, a mother of two who has rarely ventured from her Via Fiesta home since her husband died in 1989, the gesture meant more than just getting a spiffy new pad--it meant hope.
When she was widowed after nine years of marriage, Carlisle said she slipped into the darkness of depression, secluding herself inside her dreary home, blinds drawn, lights off.
Her struggle was observed by neighbors who knew Carlisle only casually but whose children often played with her daughters, ages 12 and 14. Carlisle’s dark, quiet house contrasted with the rest of the cul-de-sac, where dozens of children ride bikes and drift in mobs from one home to another and mothers get together to plan neighborhood street parties.
“We knew there just had to be something we could do to help this woman,” said Cindy Ford, who lives next door. “It was like she needed a boost, a lift or something, to get herself started in the right direction again.”
Ford and another resident, Shelly Stephans, hatched an ambitious plan to transform Carlisle’s one-story home into a freshly upgraded, bright abode, one they hoped would inspire their neighbor to embrace life again.
The women secretly passed out fliers in the neighborhood proclaiming their intentions. Sixteen families immediately signed up, Stephans said.
“It was amazing how many people were into it, people who don’t even know Teresa but wanted to do something anyway,” she said. “We never, not once, had a shortage of givers.”
Neighbors beyond the Via Fiesta cul-de-sac began offering their assistance as well, in the form of donated furniture and elbow grease.
Soon Ford and Stephans had skilled volunteers in line to fix the plumbing, repair the roof and install new floor coverings. An interior decorator tossed in lamps and wall hangings once used in model homes. A trash company donated bins to haul away debris.
Realizing the enormity of the project, Ford and Stephans went to Carlisle’s house two weeks ago and told her they had a surprise that would require her absence at home, temporarily.
“They only said they wanted to give us new carpet, that I should let them do that for us because they were worried about me and wanted to help,” Carlisle said. “I cried and cried. That alone just meant so much.”
Carlisle agreed to take her daughters to visit her parents in Santa Barbara, and within days the family pulled out of the driveway in their old, white station wagon.
They were barely out the door when a group of people, many who are strangers to Carlisle, descended on her home and went to work. They didn’t stop for nine days, laboring over finishing touches like light switch covers and decorative shelf liners until the evening of her return.
Then, leaving every bulb aglow inside the house, they disappeared into the night.
“It killed us not to run over there when she pulled up, to see her reaction,” Stephans said. “But we figured she needed time to absorb it all. We were sort of hoping she wouldn’t hate us too.”
Carlisle said she is incapable of describing the joy she felt walking in her home that night; it was a burst of happiness she said she had almost forgotten existed. As a stream of visitors stopped by the house this week, a teary Carlisle gave as many hugs as tours.
“I keep hearing more and more about all these people, such giving people, who came out to do this and I just know it’s meant to be a fresh start for me,” Carlisle said. “It was like the world couldn’t get any darker, and then I walked in here and was blessed with light.”