How to understand that distant relatives are not as good as close neighbors?

As the saying goes: distant relatives are not as good as close neighbors. I have had profound experience with this sentence.

That was more than ten years ago, when my family lived in the original old community - Xingfuli. My family lives on the first floor. The family across the street is a diligent couple who sell vegetables. She also has a boy who is the same age as my child.

We don’t actually have much contact with each other. We just meet and say hello. The couple’s daily life is busy. I chat with them about daily life, usually when I go to her vegetable stall to buy vegetables. Say a few words. Living across the street, there wasn't much interaction, but there wasn't any conflict either. There was a hidden harmony in the silence.

My colleague’s sister’s family lives upstairs, that is, on the second floor. Her son is one year older than mine. Because they are colleagues and neighbors, We will have more contacts.

It was probably the winter of 2008. One night, it was already past nine o'clock, and I was about to wash up and go to bed. (At that time, my child and I were the only two people at home, and my husband worked outside all year round.) Suddenly, the doorbell rang, and I heard my sister upstairs calling my name eagerly and saying, "Come over to my house and see how your brother-in-law is doing? He's lying on the floor." When I heard that, the situation was urgent, and I didn't say anything. , and followed her running upstairs.

I saw my brother-in-law prostrate on the ground. When he saw us coming, he stretched out his arms as if he wanted to grab something to rely on, but he was too weak to stand up and said vaguely. What are you wearing? I said he should go to the hospital quickly, and my sister said: Her son just took a bath, and then your brother-in-law smoked there and collapsed after a while. She said that her shower was powered by liquefied gas. I immediately guessed that I was poisoned by gas!

I said no, we have to go to the hospital! But we couldn’t move my brother-in-law, who was very tall and tall. I quickly called the male owner of my house across the street and the male owner of the third floor. So, together, we carried my brother-in-law to the door of my house where he usually pulls food. Used in a van. I hurried home, put on a coat, told my son (at that time, my son was just a teenager in junior high school), and then went to the hospital.

In this way, as three neighbors of my sister’s house, one person from our family came and accompanied my brother-in-law to the hospital. After a series of emergency examinations, the doctor diagnosed that my brother-in-law had carbon monoxide poisoning and needed hospitalization. Several of our neighbors were busy until almost one o'clock in the middle of the night before we came back.

Because my brother-in-law was sent to the hospital in time, he recovered and was discharged after staying in the hospital for a week. During this period, we also visited my brother-in-law in the hospital.

It seems that we don’t have much contact with each other in normal times, but in critical moments, we are always there with just a shout. This is a good neighbor. For example, the couple who live across from me get up at three o'clock in the morning to go to the wholesale market to serve food. They don't even watch TV at night, and have developed the habit of going to bed early and getting up early. The night my brother-in-law upstairs got gas, they had already rested, but I hurriedly called him up and without any explanation, I went upstairs to help.

There is also a neighbor upstairs from my sister’s house, that is, on the third floor. He stayed with her at the hospital until midnight, and then went home after everything was stable. They are such heart-warming neighbors when they show their true love in times of crisis.