The world has changed so much since the days when I was small. As a little girl I lived in a great town. We knew so many people. We had such great schools, parks and activities. When I attempt to impress people, and we are discussing the advantages of our educations, I always throw in the fact that SCUBA was an elective PE class at my high school. How cool is that. My father was a fire fighter, we called them firemen back then. We lived on a street where we all watched out for each other. No one kenneled their dog when they went on vacation, There was a neighbor ready and willing to either bring the dog to their home or come over several times a day for feeding and walking. There were no drive by shootings or break ins. Ok, there was the occasional stolen bike. The bike in question was probably left out overnight, usually against the family’s house rules. Because my parents grew up in this same town, we has people looking out for us at all times, whether we liked it or not. We had a network of support and a web of safety, My parent’s friends were policemen, firemen, doctors, lawyers, artists and amazingly wonderful people. I can’t think of a single one I wouldn’t turn to for help if my parents were unavailable.
When I was about 17, my parent went out of town unexpectedly one night. If memory serves they went to take delivery on a new fire engine. Think about, it’s not like you stop by the local dealer and pick a fire engine off the lot. I had a date so when I arrived home, yes before curfew…that’s all I’m saying, I let our dog out, washed up and went to bed. As I was drifting off to sleep, there was a huge crash in the garage... My first thought was… we don’t lock our doors… never needed to, I started for the kitchen remembering that supposedly you have the advantage in your own home so you shouldn’t turn on the lights. I seriously question that brilliant logic as I tripped over the dog. Another crash. Now the dog’s attention was piqued. Another crash… I’m going to die… right here in the kitchen with just an old tee shirt and sweat pants (way before that was a fashion statement) on. I picked up the phone and dialed the non-emergency number at the firehouse. There is an unspoken rule that emergency personal’s kids… should never, ever call the emergency numbers. The dispatcher was someone I knew well… I whispered that someone was in the garage. The dispatcher asked where the dog was…by this time she was moaning at the door leading to the garage… all hair standing on end. Freaked me out. JS, the dispatcher told me he was sending the cops. I was to stay on the line. I heard the cops roll up, one car in the driveway, one on the lawn, 2 on the street. I saw a cop pass by the kitchen window, coming from the street behind our house. Another crash and guns were drawn…JS was telling me it would be ok and to just stay where I was until the cops came to get me. I heard the cop yell in to the garage. He told the intruder to come out or they were coming in. No response. There were now 5 or 6 cops, guns drawn.. The garage door flung open… I braced myself for shots to be fired, sounds of agony… what? What was I hearing? Laughter? A cop rang the bell and asked me to come outside…. Shaking and afraid of what I might see… I joined the police in my front yard. The intruders were still in the garage… The mother raccoon and her 4 babies had ripped in to a huge bag of dog food and were having a grand time. I on the other hand was mortified. I pleaded with the cops to not say anything about this to anyone… they were non-committal in between their bouts of hysteria. The next night at dinner, my dad made no mention of the incident. I certainly has not mentioned it. I thought those wonderful policemen had understood my plight and decided not to make my public humiliation, even more public. About a month later, as I was reading an article in the local paper and admonishing some mother in the neighborhood for not controlling her child’s unrelenting desire to continuously dial the fire department emergency number… my dad causally said… “well at least he didn’t call about any killer raccoons…“. Life would never be the same again.
My current neighborhood was chosen for among many reasons, it’s ability to mimic my childhood surroundings. Neighbors on my street actually care about each other. Kids play together. We have Friday night fires complete with s’mores and adult beverages. We do block parties and baby showers. We are all outside for Trick or Treat and snow blowing is usually done as early as possible in order to sneak and do another neighbor’s driveway as an unexpected favor. My late husband and I changed the demographic of our street. We were not young or newly married. We don’t have small children nor the potential of having additional children. We represent to the families on the block… the finish line. To them we have spiked the ball, run through the tape, jumped on home plate and raised our fists in celebration and come out victorious. We were at the place they hoped to be in 10-15 years. We had disposable income. The guys looked to my husband as thought he had the wisdom of Zeus. One women once said that we were encouraging to her and her husband, because it was great to know that after the kids were raised, love for each other could be rediscovered. I firmly believe the kids on the street loved us because we were suckers for fundraisers. Bad school fundraiser almond bark anyone? I think there are 7-8 bars in the freezer.
Then I had to what I was trained never to do… but when I dialed 911 at 3:30am on that fateful day, I also set in motion a chain of neighborhood events. With multiple emergency vehicles in front of our home, I know we woke up the entire block. The gentleman and I mean gentle man, who lives across the street has the same name as my husband. After they took my husband to the ambulance, I was trying to grab medications and get myself to the hospital when I heard the front door open and a voice yelled to me “Hey XXXX, It’s (same name as my husband’s)”. For a split second, I was relieved.. The past hour of hearing the deliberator the paramedics were using call out “no activity detected, restart failed” was a bad dream… he was fine and coming in the house to tell me it was going to be alright. But it was my neighbor, coming to see what he could do… almost immediately calls were made from neighbor to neighbor, food was being cooked in case it was needed. Later that evening I came home and returned a few voicemails. My husband was still alive at that point, but I knew it was a matter of hours at most. How do you say that to these young vibrant couples who loved him? I remember calling our next door neighbors. We had grown very close. A wonderful young couple, he’s a cop she’s an at home mom. They have 4 good, kind and beautiful children. I told her he was alive but it was bad. I heard hear sniffle and knew I needed to end the conversation. She asked that I keep in touch and said she would pray. My husband passed within 2 hours of that conversation. The next morning in a blur of phone calls, planning, cleaning and tears, the door bell rang. She was standing there with food. Cakes, chicken, fruit and much more than I remember. She asked how he was doing. All I could get out was that I was so sorry to tell her. She broke down. Honestly at first I was angry that she was crying. And then it hit me. This sadness wasn’t and shouldn’t be about me. She was grieving for the loss of a friend and of someone who made an impact in her life. That was the first of many moments over the course of the past months that I truly understood what my husband added to the lives of those around him. How many make that kind of impact everyday. I’ll share more about the amazing things I’ve learned about the man I knew so well in later blogs. I pray that going forward, I look to everyone I meet as part of my community. I will do my best to make every person’s life just a bit better for the experience. Can I really do it?
I hope so…
chapter2sl@gmail.com
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