My neighbor Connie

I have the timing down perfectly. I know exactly when I have to leave my house to get to the place near Edmund's school where I pick up him and a neighbor boy after school on time. And today I was right on it.

But.

The first thing I saw when I stepped out my front door was my neighbor Connie. On the sidewalk right in front of my house with her walker. And I heard the tell-tale scraping of it on the cement at the same moment. 

I haven’t seen her in a while. She rarely leaves her house any time of year, unless it’s to hang a towel on the drying line in her backyard or to drop her tiny bag of garbage at the curb once a week. And in the winter I almost never see her at all. So this is the first I’ve seen her this spring.

She saw me, too. She paused in her shuffling. “Your flowers look wonderful!” she said. And continued. The scraping restarted. I called back, saying a word about the tulips. She didn’t answer.

I continued to my van, putting my purse inside and turning to see that Connie was past my driveway before I got inside myself. She wasn’t.

She was coming toward me. Looking to me. I called out, “how are you?” 

She said, “I don’t have my hearing aids in.” Then she waved me closer with her hand.  

We met at the bottom of my driveway. She told me again that she likes my flowers. I told her I just put the tulips in last fall.

“You know, we live on the shade side of the street.” 

“I know,” I said. “My flowers are always a couple weeks behind his,” I added, pointing across the street at Bob’s lovely gardens. 

“Yes, but they’ll come. They’ll come. I wasn’t going to come out at all. But the weather is just so nice.”

She asked about our Easter. She told me that she had gone to her daughter’s house for Easter dinner. She said, “My granddaughter. My oldest granddaughter–I have a couple others–just announced. She’s going to have a baby! It will be my first great-grandbaby.”

“That’s so wonderful. I’m so glad to hear it.”

“Yes. She didn’t think she would have any children. She’s 35, you know. But you never know what will happen. They are having a shower for her and I’m going to go.”

I knew I was late now. Edmund and his friend might be wondering if I’ve forgotten them. But I wasn’t about to rush her in any way. 

“I’ll be 95 on June 25th.”

“Wow!” I said, “95!?”

“Yes.” She paused, turning her walker slightly to head back toward the sidewalk. “When he comes to get me, when he tells me my time’s up, I’m going to say, ‘Thanks for all you gave me.’

 

I just smiled. Marveled. 

We exchanged a word or two more. And she began scraping along the sidewalk again to get out of the way of my driveway. 

“Don’t hurry!” I said.

She laughed. “I’ve heard my daughter say that to me enough times.”

I drove away feeling like there was something pure and beautiful about those few sentences she'd spoken to me. I needed to write them down, remember all that she had said to me. It felt like a gift. Somehow. The blue sky and the dogwood trees blooming and her happy news. 

Edmund and his friend had been waiting for a moment or two when I arrived. But still, I think I got the timing just right, don’t you?