Sometimes when things just aren't happening the way you want them to you just lay in bed at night with certain names, faces, and voices passing through your mind. I love where I live here in Phoenix. Our home is a comfortable one, big enough for Xavier and Myself and our menagerie of birds. Omar, Kylie and Ella . They're the dragons that surround our castle and protect us from the dullness an ordinary boringness that some people seem to be consumed by. Outside our home...the neighborhood is pretty dull,. Pretty dull indeed , except for our next door neighbors. For the past 12 years living here at "Piccadilly Circus" has been such a special place to live. For the past 12 years our closest friends and dearest neighbors have been the elderly couple that lived on the west side of our home. They've been our only neighbors as our home is situated on a corner. My first experiences with them when I moved in to Piccadilly Circus was so warm and charming. Terri and Floyd were in there late seventies then I guess. When I first moved in Terri came over and welcomed me to Piccadilly Road. Floyd would always challenge me to a round of weekend golf (a challenge which I'd never take because he always had a gleam in his eye that he wanted to pummel me on the fairway) Through the years Floyd and Terry came to be so much more than next door neighbors. Whether it was chats across the fence or sitting in their front porch swing. Maybe borrowing a ladder, or a table spoon of some spice or something or other... We were next door neighbors in the very best way...Terri always has some charming unique observations about what's really going on in the neighborhood. She always has some interesting gossip or tidbit of news about goings on that I'm simply oblivious to.
So many instances of what neighbors should be are just what Terri, Floyd, Xavier and Myself shared. Running outside at the stroke of midnight on the 31'st of December 1999 to watch and see if the Y2K was really going to cause the city to blackout. Seeing that it didn't we proceeded to bang our pots and lids and make some noise to ring in the year 2000. Through the years, over the backyard fence and on their front porch swing we've shared so many laughs about life's many challenges and joys. We've said so much, but I still have so many more things to share. Many times I wanted to go with them during the summer to get away to their cabin "up the hill" as she'd always say...near Flagstaff to escape the summer heat of Phoenix. So many things we never got to do. Maybe never will...
Floyd died about 4 days after Christmas after a being ill for quite a time. It was so sad seeing Terri alone. And now, Terri is in the hospital. Exhausted from her loneliness. After 12 years of solid loving neighborly friendship I am now at a loss for what to do or say to Terri or her family. I visited with her today. at the hospital. She looked a little bit better than she did the day before yesterday. I sat by her bedside and we spoke about what she wanted. She said she didn't know what she wanted. I said that it's really up to her but we all want her to be here with us of course. She stretched out her arm and pulled me close and gave me a hug and a kiss. I am praying for my dear friend. What more can I do?
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