News
It was a normal good-bye — if normal is seeing a dear neighbor for the last time, just before he checks himself into a retirement home.
This was an undefined good-bye, fraught with undertones and overtones that threatened to drown us out in a symphony of despondency. There was not a Hallmark moment in sight.
Though my coping mechanism for sorrow, anger and discomfort is often humor, even I recognized that a “Catch you on the flipside” remark wasn't going to work.
I've known Bob for 10 years and what a rich, memory-filled time it's been.
Through the growing of children (ours), a wife's debilitating Alzheimer's (his) and a multitude of pound puppies (both), good-byes were plentiful. Our streetside encounters always provided me with a sense of security and history, even as we now shared tears and silently realized the tenuous hold time has on us all.
Our kids rode bikes in front of Bob and June's house, waving excitedly as they transitioned from training wheels, metaphorical and otherwise, to the two-wheeling lifestyle of young adults.
Through it all, our neighbor, Bob, was rock-steady, solidifying our sense of community and belief that we were safe. A vigorous man, all of the neighbors enjoyed seeing Bob strut briskly down the street for his daily constitutional for the mail, making more than one of us feel a guilty that we weren't doing the same. After all, he had a good four decades on us, so that old excuse, “I'm too tired to exercise,” was shown as a pathetic cop-out.
And then we didn't see Bob as much. When we did, we noticed his gait was slower, his trip to the mailbox took longer, and he recognized us more slowly. His macular degeneration ramped up, juxtaposed next to our ramped up schedule of commitments, so we missed not only his decline, but June's, which led to her recent death.
My kids were growing up, and though I contemplated their moving out plenty, ironically enough, it was Bob's that would be my first entrée into the world of painful relocations.
Bob will finish up the business of living, alone, at a veteran's retirement facility in Yountville. I found this out, much as life's events that are grievously memorable and painfully meaningful are often found out — suddenly, without preamble, and with the knowledge that this would be an ending without a new beginning.
I fully experienced this last good-bye in real time because, when I saw him, I just happened to be completing the most basic of tasks: Bringing up our garbage cans from the street.
Bob often brought those trash cans up for us in the early days, knowing my husband commuted and I was alone with two small children. A tall, gallant and handsome septuagenarian, he helped without asking.
In this last encounter, our exchanged pleasantries turned into words of greater import as he gave me the news of his move.
It was happenstance that I got to hug Bob, hold his hand, and tell him what he has meant to our family. It is happenstance that allows us these joyous relationships at all.
It will be happenstance if I see him again, before he joins his beloved June, but it is good fortune wrapped around a core of gratitude that allows me to hold him dear in my memory, savoring that last interaction.
There is much to celebrate in my life, yet I can't help believing that my voyage will be a bit more lonely. As I walk the neighborhood, noticing the houses filling with younger people, Bob's last joking aside reverberates in my head: “I'll be renting my house out to a group of Hell's Angels.”
That Bob. He always knew how to make me laugh when we chatted, almost as much as he made me cry when we said good-bye.
And my garbage cans? They still sit around a little too long, but whenever I retrieve them, I simultaneously retrieve my image of Bob and imagine him walking with me, up my lengthy, uphill driveway, and he tips his hat toward me, making me smile.
(Diane Dean-Epps is an author, Nevada Union High School English teacher and comedienne, among other vocations. She can be reached at mswrite10@yahoo.com or DianeDeanEpps.com.)
This was an undefined good-bye, fraught with undertones and overtones that threatened to drown us out in a symphony of despondency. There was not a Hallmark moment in sight.
Though my coping mechanism for sorrow, anger and discomfort is often humor, even I recognized that a “Catch you on the flipside” remark wasn't going to work.
I've known Bob for 10 years and what a rich, memory-filled time it's been.
Through the growing of children (ours), a wife's debilitating Alzheimer's (his) and a multitude of pound puppies (both), good-byes were plentiful. Our streetside encounters always provided me with a sense of security and history, even as we now shared tears and silently realized the tenuous hold time has on us all.
Our kids rode bikes in front of Bob and June's house, waving excitedly as they transitioned from training wheels, metaphorical and otherwise, to the two-wheeling lifestyle of young adults.
Through it all, our neighbor, Bob, was rock-steady, solidifying our sense of community and belief that we were safe. A vigorous man, all of the neighbors enjoyed seeing Bob strut briskly down the street for his daily constitutional for the mail, making more than one of us feel a guilty that we weren't doing the same. After all, he had a good four decades on us, so that old excuse, “I'm too tired to exercise,” was shown as a pathetic cop-out.
And then we didn't see Bob as much. When we did, we noticed his gait was slower, his trip to the mailbox took longer, and he recognized us more slowly. His macular degeneration ramped up, juxtaposed next to our ramped up schedule of commitments, so we missed not only his decline, but June's, which led to her recent death.
My kids were growing up, and though I contemplated their moving out plenty, ironically enough, it was Bob's that would be my first entrée into the world of painful relocations.
Bob will finish up the business of living, alone, at a veteran's retirement facility in Yountville. I found this out, much as life's events that are grievously memorable and painfully meaningful are often found out — suddenly, without preamble, and with the knowledge that this would be an ending without a new beginning.
I fully experienced this last good-bye in real time because, when I saw him, I just happened to be completing the most basic of tasks: Bringing up our garbage cans from the street.
Bob often brought those trash cans up for us in the early days, knowing my husband commuted and I was alone with two small children. A tall, gallant and handsome septuagenarian, he helped without asking.
In this last encounter, our exchanged pleasantries turned into words of greater import as he gave me the news of his move.
It was happenstance that I got to hug Bob, hold his hand, and tell him what he has meant to our family. It is happenstance that allows us these joyous relationships at all.
It will be happenstance if I see him again, before he joins his beloved June, but it is good fortune wrapped around a core of gratitude that allows me to hold him dear in my memory, savoring that last interaction.
There is much to celebrate in my life, yet I can't help believing that my voyage will be a bit more lonely. As I walk the neighborhood, noticing the houses filling with younger people, Bob's last joking aside reverberates in my head: “I'll be renting my house out to a group of Hell's Angels.”
That Bob. He always knew how to make me laugh when we chatted, almost as much as he made me cry when we said good-bye.
And my garbage cans? They still sit around a little too long, but whenever I retrieve them, I simultaneously retrieve my image of Bob and imagine him walking with me, up my lengthy, uphill driveway, and he tips his hat toward me, making me smile.
(Diane Dean-Epps is an author, Nevada Union High School English teacher and comedienne, among other vocations. She can be reached at mswrite10@yahoo.com or DianeDeanEpps.com.)
