Last week I stopped by our former neighbor’s house to return a video. It felt very old fashioned: returning a video in person and making a visit out of it. This couple- George and Kay- are in their 70s, and as vibrant as can be. He is probably the world’s most prominent animal conservationist and she the amazing woman who makes all the ships and trains leave on time as George tends to visit countries the way most of us do supermarkets. The video was a recent National Geographic special on George. It was fun to see him on screen saving animals in places like China, Brazil, Tibet, Alaska and then the next day live and in person in his potting shed where he was repairing the roof himself. When we used to live next door I always knew George was home from one his trips because he’d be out pushing a hand mower for hours at a time with the elegant intensity of a poet composing a sonnet. At first I wondered why didn’t he have someone else do it? Then I realized, he did it because it instantly connected him back to his own soil. It literally grounded him.
Their house- a converted tobacco barn which used to be part of our original property- has not changed since they moved into it back in the 70s. When we first arrived in Roxbury, we looked at their back lawn which seamlessly bordered ours and wondered if the lack of fencing would make for bad neighbors. And then we met Kay. She strode over bearing flowers from her garden. As time passed, we reaped the joyful benefits of the clear view of her lovely roses and flox bending in the wind.
Kay became like a second grand mother. If I was a few minutes late coming home for the school bus- which deposited my boys smack in front of our side by side mailboxes- I’d call her panicked. “Do not worry,” she’d always say. “I will be there.” She could see our yard from hers and I slept peacefully knowing that she had spent many a winter night along with George out in the field somewhere far, far away. With my own husband working night shifts and two little boys sleeping down the hall, I would often calm myself by thinking: “Kay has been here for over thirty years and she’d didn’t even have a generator. If she could do it, so can I.” The women raised two boys in Africa. They had lion cubs for pets. I was truly a pathetic excuse for a corresponding country girl but Kay never let on.
One night she telephoned in earnest, urging us come over and witness a plant she had in her living room that bloomed only once a year. It was one of the few times I ever saw her entertain. Despite the fact that she was a wonderful conversationalist, she always seem to prefer the company of her dogs. Unless it was my sons’ birthday parties and then she always accepted the invitation. My boys loved all the animal pictures and memorabilia around the house and how the plants were allowed to grow wherever they felt like it. Here there was no surface too precious for a child- or animal- to touch or sit upon.
My sons always hurried friends over to show off George’s cement imprint of “Big Foot” which George claims was found just after the famous footage of the beast running away from the camera. As many times as he was interrupted by the scurry of urgent foot steps, George told the story afresh to lots of wide young eyes bent eagerly upwards.
Sitting down now and chatting with Kay, I saw nothing had changed except the plants had grown up in even crazier twists. She pushed off some dog blankets on the sofa to make room for me. Instead of looking at my watch and thinking about the next thing I had to do, I sat and stayed. I knew visits like this wouldn’t happen much anymore. Yes, she was only 15 minutes away from our new house but neighbors enjoy a special privileges that get lost no matter how strong the bond once distance is inserted into the equation. The black poodle who sauntered up wasn’t Deliah, Kay’s original beloved dog, but her daughter. Kay walked me out to the garden and showed me the careful grave they had planted with flowers on top. “These will eventually cover Deliah nicely,” she told me simply. From here, I could see the swing set where my boys used to play. The new owners had chosen to keep it. Now I was on the other side of the meadow looking back at my life and it was all I could do not to gulp back the tears. Time was passing so fast.
When we showed potential buyers our house many always asked why we hadn’t ever erected as fence between our land and Kay and George’s.
I didn’t knew where to begin. The sight of Kay picking tomatoes in anticipation of George’s arrival home? George looking up from his lawn mower to throw a hearty wave in my boys’ direction? Or the time I apologized when we bought a drum set for one son and an electric guitar for the other. “Are you kidding me?” Kay said, when I promised her we wouldn’t be too loud. “We love it!”
Why hadn’t we built a fence? If they only knew.