The Importance of Being Neighborly

As the years passed, I learned that I wasn't the only neighbor on the receiving end of Bill's favors. So when he knocked on my door one night in February and asked to park his bike in my garage for a few days, as he had no covered space for it, I said sure. It turned out to be not any old motorcycle, but an antique Harley-Davidson worth a bundle. I could tell what it was worth to Bill just by watching him stroke it, and it had more to do with memories than monetary value. He loved that bike. For reasons known only to Bill, "a few days" stretched into weeks, then a month. Every few nights, Bill would find a reason to come by and tinker. He'd drive a screw here, check a gasket there, and later I'd find the oil dripping onto the garage floor. Or he'd bring over a half-dozen buddies and ask me to open the garage door so they could admire it. After a while, I'd just ask Bill to turn off the lights and lock up when he was through.

Then one morning, an ambulance pulled up to the mustard-yellow house. Several of us neighbors huddled outside, worrying aloud that George or Lily had suffered a stroke. We breathed easier when the medics left without a passenger. But when Bill's daughter rang my doorbell, asking to collect the bike that was still in my garage, I knew something was wrong. She said Bill had died in his sleep that morning, felled by a heart condition.

Pretty Girl misses him most of all, I suspect. No one's nearly as reliable as Bill when it comes to her accustomed walks. For a long while, Lily fielded calls from people who needed a load of debris hauled. She'd just say Bill died and went to heaven.

My 8-year-old daughter said it wasn't fair that we didn't get a chance to say goodbye. The lesson, I tried to explain, is to cherish all the chances we get to say hello.

Rhiannon lives in Bend, Ore.

© 2007