Farewell friend

He was my next-door neighbor for 12 years, from the first day I bought my house. Everyone else has changed over the years. He stayed put, an aging and fiercely independent widower with no family here in town.

Each spring, I planted an extra basket of petunias and pansies and hung it outside his garage. He always kept it watered. He wasn't overtly social, certainly not the Ned Flanders model of a neighbor, but he was happy to stop and chat about the latest goings-on with his daughter in the Lower 48 or local politics or my job or his health. He watched my children grow up and always had kind words for and about them and about the horde of other kids that now live on our street. He even liked my obnoxious dog and took time to pet her when he went on his forays out to the mailbox. I watched him grow older and I worried, sometimes, about him living alone.

During the winter, if the snow got too deep, I or my teenage son or one of the other neighbors would clear it from in front of the garage. During the winter, he usually only came and went to take the garbage to the dumpster and get the mail. We checked in on him during the holidays. I always sent the kids over with a plate of goodies on Christmas.

And once April and May rolled around, like the rest of the Alaskans, he would emerge from his winter abode into the sunshine. We'd stop to chat in the driveway and he would remark that the kids had grown a lot over the winter.

He won't be meeting me in the driveway this spring. The state troopers stopped by tonight with a familiar and foreboding scenario. Had anyone spoken to him recently? A lone trooper watched the house for a couple of hours. Then the white van arrived. And the gurney. They went into the house and came out carrying a body bag.

It's not that he is gone. He was at least 70 years old. I know his aches and pains had become harder and harder to bear. He and I had talked about aging, and I know that he wanted to die on his own terms, in his own home. Still, I can't help but wonder if we should have checked on him more often, if I could have done something differently.

The spring won't be the same this year. I'm not sure what I will do with that extra flower basket. I'll miss those perfectly prosaic driveway conversations. Each of those moments are, taken alone, of little consequence. Together they form a presence in my life and the life of my family that will be missed. He will be missed. And I hope he knew that before he died.

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