Posted: 9/11/02

A neighborhood changes

Our neighborhood changed last weekend. Some say for the best; I can only wonder.

I have known John for the past 20 years. He was a retired senior when I first met him. He would stroll past my house on his way to the grocery store. He did it often and when we would meet by the curb, there was always a brief conversation. It was of the usual stuff neighbors would chat about.

In the past four or five years, Iíve come to know John on a different level. He has become a friend and maybe even the grandfather or uncle I no longer have in my life.

At 97, John no longer walks to the grocery store. His days have been limited to his tidy two-bedroom that he shared with his wife, Irene. He has made the best of it since she passed on nearly a decade ago.

Time and so many years of walking on this earth has enacted a price on Johnís stout body. Arthritis has crippled his hands and feet; his eyesight has failed and his hearing capacity has diminished. All this after surviving a serious stroke some 25 years ago.

Most people would have given up years ago. But not John.

His mind has remained sharp. He can tell stories of his early days first growing up near St. Cloud and later moving to St. Paul and Minneapolis as a boy. It was in the cities where he discovered his love for plants and gardening, It was a passion and talent that would push him to a lifelong occupation.

Visits with John were always productive and stimulating. I have long marveled at someone who has seen the changes in our world that he has seen. He was born on May 16, 1905 and can recall most of the 20th century.

Many of us marvel at the changes weíve seen in our lifetime. Image what John has experienced?

He, too, has struggled with some of the changes our world has seen.

Just a year ago he wondered out loud why someone would fly jetliners into skyscrapers for the pure purpose of killing innocent people.

This spring and summer, as he listened intently to his beloved Minnesota Twins on the radio, he could not understand why ballplayers making huge salaries would consider walking away on strike over a contract dispute with owners?

John remained a fixture in the neighborhood thanks largely to caring neighbors who went out of their way to help someone they considered a friend.

ìI may die one day, but it wonít be from lack of food,î he once joked. It was true.

Neighbors did what they could for John and one thing was cooking. He never turned down a home cooked meal.

When it came to meal preparation by neighbors, it was never any trouble to throw an extra piece of meat on the grill, bake an extra potato or use a larger kettle to cook an extra ear of corn or two. If the meat was fresh fish and fried onions, all the better, he would say.

And it was no problem to slice a pie six ways with a thick slab for John always a must.

It wasnít just the food that John was grateful for. He enjoyed the friendship and the talks that always went with the visits. For those of us with dogs and cats, they stopped in too, and shared in the time together.

He understood that many in our neighborhood were trying to look out for him.

It wasnít just neighbors who made Johnís life possible. Hardly. We did the easy things.

John understood that he needed more help in his daily chores and employed home health aides to assist him. The loyalty of these women and the love they showered on John can not be measured. They made his life go in no uncertain terms.

Even with hurdles in his life, he has remained fiercely independent with a burning desire to live out his days at home, dying in the bed where he is comfortable and at peace.

Last weekend, after weeks of wrestling with one of the toughest decisions he has ever had to make, John agreed the time was now to leave his home.

A fall in the bathtub two weeks ago had drained some of his energy, but had broken no bones. Fearful of falling again, John agreed that a nursing home might be best.

He has now started a new phase of his life. He will have visits from many of us, but it wonít be the same, not really.

Our neighborhood has a void that we can not fill.

We wonít glance at his house with the same purpose we once did as we pass by. There will be no reason to pop in on the old boy just to see if there is something he needs or if he has remembered to tune in the Twins on the ìold neighbor.î

We will still see the finely trimmed lawn, the black pots filled with red geraniums and a driveway lined with giant yellow marigolds, but we know all is not the same.

We can take stock and comfort that John is in a safe place where caring hands will be close by when they are needed. There is now no need to worry about someone special when we can not be there to help.

That John could come to such a decision in his life speaks volumes for the man. It is the realization that he would give up what is so important to do what is best for himself, and those that he loves, that brings us to understand one more truly amazing attribute of this gentle man.

We will miss him for sure in the neighborhood, but the subtle lessons he has taught will be cherished. As will our visits to his new home.

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