When my then-partner’s knees could no longer manage the stairs in our urban townhouse – our kitchen was on the top floor, forty feet off the ground– I reluctantly agreed to move. A confirmed urbanist, I stipulated that at least we remain in the city. My bottom line, however, was light and dirt. I needed a house with a southwest exposure and a flat piece of land for a garden.
Months of searching for a workable site in Albany turned up no winners. Through serendipity and desperation, Marjorie found the perfect site – a corner lot in a new development in the Town of Bethlehem, hamlet of Glenmont. It had a southwest exposure, no slope, a builder who was willing to situate the house to maximize the exposure, and who, a reader himself, would build us a library for our hundreds of books. Still – the suburbs? a development? a new house? None of this was me.
And then I met Rich and Glenna. Driving in to take another look at the lot, I saw across the street a boy mowing the lawn and a man helping him learn how to do it right. Arrogantly urban, I had some prejudices about the suburbs. I assumed that in the suburbs children were not asked to help with the chores, especially outside choirs. I assumed rich and spoiled and glued to the video screen. Seeing something quite different from what I expected, I thought, “Perhaps I could live here after all.” I introduced myself and so began a connection that has lasted for twenty-four years.
It is a special form of friendship, the neighbor relationship.
It is a gift composed of the daily awareness of presence. Of the quick wave and the brief hello when one is pulling out of the driveway and the other is putting out the garbage. Of the casual meeting while raking leaves or tending gardens. Of the chat about the children or politics. Of the pleasure of talking to people you respect, who share your values, but sometimes think differently about how to realize them.
It is a gift composed of game nights and patio visits. Of dinners, occasional ones and once-in-a-lifetime ones, ones with menus Glenna has prepared pairing offerings of food with offerings of wine, leaving us grateful for the conversation and the cuisine and equally grateful that all we need do, having tasted so abundantly of the wine, is get across the street.
It is a gift composed of hundreds of tiny assists exchanged over years.
We will be away for a few days. Can you pick up a package that is going to be delivered tomorrow and hold it for us?
The tires on my wheelbarrow have gone flat. Can I borrow your bicycle pump?
Do you have good source for mulch?
Hey, Rich, we need some upper body strength. Can you come over and help us lift this window into place?
It is a gift composed of unspoken companionship. Walking the neighborhood in the early morning hours, gearing up for a day of writing, I see the light in Rich’s office already on. He too is up and perhaps working on his “Ms. Money” books, a series designed to teach financial literacy to children.
It is a gift of comfort, a sense of safety that comes from knowing someone close by is there for you in a crisis. The night before I was due at the hospital for knee replacement surgery a substantial snowstorm was predicted. There was no chance that our snow-blowing service would be able to clear the driveway in time for us to get out. I knew Rich and Glenna would get us out.
It is the gift of hopefully giving the same sense of comfort and security to someone else.
It is the gift of a relationship that can neither be duplicated nor replaced.
A week ago today Rich and Glenna moved away, to Maryland. to be near their daughters and their grandchildren. The beige car and the blue car are gone. The house is dark.
When my parents left their home of some twenty-five years to move nearer my brother and sister-in-law, the little boy next door, a relatively new arrival to the neighborhood but a boy with whom my father played cards every day, threw himself on the car and wept. I felt last Tuesday like that little boy.
The day before they moved, Rich knocked on the door and I gladly went to answer, anticipating the pleasure of seeing Rich at the door one more time and hoping for the chance to do a last favor. He handed me the keys to our house. There was a wee note on the key chain that said “Cats.” Seeing it, I was plunged into memory, reminded again of the length and depth of this particular connection.
When Marjorie and I first moved to Columbine Drive, Ricky, Rich and Glenna’s son, the boy who mowed his family’s lawn, took care of our cats when we were away. He learned to indulge Toddy in her peculiarities. She would only drink running water, preferably from the upstairs tub, and she liked to drink a lot. Coming home, I would joke with Ricky and, pretending to be one of our cats, I would croon “Ricky, don’t lose our number.”
I know that aging is an experience of loss. I know more loss is ahead. I know I need to figure out how I am going to survive the losses as they accumulate. But today I just want to cry.
Robert Frost, impersonating a New England farmer, famously said, “Good fences make good neighbors.” I believe that good people make good neighbors. Rich and Glenna are good people. They were good neighbors. I will miss them more than I can ever say.