side tracked

This is not the post I intended to write today (I know, I know...what else is new)....but something has come up.

The back story:
In February, one of my neighbors (in the neighborhood of YeOldHouse) passed away.

I filched these pictures during the slide show at the funeral.  I could swear I wrote about him somewhere on this blog, maybe not right away, but somewhere...and I could even swear that I wrote a secondary post later about his wife who knits.  I can't find them anywhere.  So let me re-cap.

This guy was like the mayor of our little community here.  We have cluster mailboxes up near the front gate, and his house was positioned very close by.  He would sit every afternoon in his garage at a little table right near the edge of the driveway, drinking a can of Coors or iced tea, and he watch people picking up their mail.  As for me, he'd always he'd always wave as we as you went by. Well, he'd more point. Like bang-bang, like he was shootin' at ya', with a wink.   I'd stop and talked to him from to time to time about all sorts of things.  He was a sweetheart of a man. 

A couple of years before he passed, the community was having a garage sale, and his wife Anne had all her vintage knitting needles out for sale.  She said she just didn't have time anymore. I snapped them all up. I keep most of them in a vase in my bedroom.

The first week after Mr Cray died, Anne accidentally locked herself out of her house, and she came to my house and sat for awhile until we could figure out how to get some spare keys to her.  We talked then and I invited her to join us at the the senior center knitting group.  I would invite her every time I would see her walking to and from the mailbox.  She say she wasn't quite ready yet, but soon. She was also worried she might have forgotten.  At one point, I think a month or two ago (time is playing tricks on me) I left a package on her doorstep with some yarn, and a pattern, and a few pairs of her old needles.  I included a note again about coming to the senior center, as I really felt she'd enjoy the company of the ladies there.  When I next ran into her at the mailbox and she asked me when I'd come over and sit with her and knit.  Every time I'd drive by her house I'd remind myself that I needed to do that....and then I'd get too busy.

And today she passed away :-(

MyFavoriteKid says he thinks she died of broken heart, and I agreed, because the first words that flashed through my mind was "Where the Red Fern Grows".

There was a photo of Anne posted at the community mailboxes along with a note that said she passed while visiting her sister in Florida, and that there would be new about funeral stuff. 

She was very involved in her local church here, so I'm sure we will be going back there soon for another slide show.  
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I have to just say, it's sometimes a really horrible feeling to see these things posted at the mailbox.   Often times the notices at the mailbox are things like a list of the birthdays happening this month in the community, or like this month, that we are having a neighborhood potluck.  But then every once in awhile, things like today happen.

We pulled up, I was still in my car, I looked over to the mailboxes, and saw her photo from a distance, and it was like, "Oooooohhhhhh nooooooooooo."  A bit of an arrow through the heart.
 

Three weeks ago (and I suck for not even blogging this) another neighbor of mine, Tom, passed away due to coronary issues....totally out of nowhere.   He was only in his late 60's.   I saw heard an ambulance that morning, and the next day, there was the note on the bulletin board.  It was a horrible shocker for me. He was a big giant of man, and he and his wife had had me over to see their kitchen remodel, plus he'd been into YeOldHouse here to help me figure out some ideas for adding a wooden deck.  His stepson cleans my gutters every year and helps me weed the garden.

It's rough.

On the other hand....let me just say I am super duper grateful to live here where so many of us know each other. I've lived in places where hardly anybody knows anybody, and this is not even remotely the case here.

The fact that I have friends here is one of things that has me feeling a wee bit safer as I deal with my actual next door neighbor (the dog shooter). And that is what I had intended on writing about tonight.  I will do it.  Soon. Hopefully over the weekend...although it's a busy one.  If it doesn't work out, then Monday...because I definitely have updates.

have a great weekend, y'all
and Love They Neighbor
xo