Neighborly

Our new neighborhood is close knit.  City houses are built close together, backyards are small, and the neighbors we've met are chatty.  They are more than happy to share Schwan's catalogs, tips on local dairy delivery, recommendations on the best butcher shop nearby, how to navigate on-street parking (we have a garage and carport in back, but right now the garage is full of boxes so one of us is parking on the street out front), and save-the-date for the annual block party (yes, it's that kind of neighborhood.)

On days when I'm feeling tired and snarky, that means that everyone is up in our business.

On days when I'm feeling social and friendly, that means that everyone is friendly and welcoming.

Our neighbor lady two doors down is the "Block Captain" (I am not kidding) and she frequently pops over or just shouts across the backyard to say hi.  The first day we visited the new house and carried a few things over, we'd barely gotten out of the car when we heard her call out, "Are you the new neighbors?"  I guess it's good to know she's keeping an eye on things in case anyone considered breaking and entering...  She's also the one who brought us cookies on moving day, and who knocked on the door this morning to tell me to move my car so I wouldn't get a ticket during the monthly street cleaning.  I am glad to have her looking out for us, although her aggressive friendliness takes some getting used to after years of living next to neighbors with whom our basic interaction was simply to wave from a distance.

I thought I would hate the intrusive neighbor thing, but I'm actually warming to it.  Maybe it's because it gives me a small-town vibe?  Anyway, while I expect that I won't always feel like chatting every time The Block Captain tries to strike up conversation, I think the benefit of having a friendly and close-knit neighborhood outweighs my occasional misanthropy.

This particular neighbor, The Block Captain, came over to visit a few nights ago.  The weather was nice so we were sitting outside.  The youngest of her sons (and only one still living at home) came with her--a nice kid who's going to be in high school next year.  We had a million things to do, but she settled on our patio furniture and obviously felt like chatting, so I did my best to be sociable.  David went inside to take a phone call from our realtor, so then it was the three of us (plus Zuzu) sitting on the patio.  We chatted about her son's plans for high school and my plans for the summer and watched Zuzu play with my car keys (I have started washing them because she loves them so much and they are such a gross toy).  Then The Block Captain asked me if we were going to have any more children.

It's one of those questions that is super nosy and not at all appropriate, but The Block Captain, bless her heart, doesn't have the boundaries that some people have.  The honest answer is that we don't know, so that's what I told her.

And then I took a deep breath and I told her about Eliza.

My social circles being what they are (relatively small and entrenched), it's been a while since I've had to tell someone new about Eliza.  I was able to do it without crying, and, to her credit, she responded exactly the way people should respond to that information.

She said she was sorry, she said that it must have been really difficult for us, she said that she was sorry again, she asked if we knew what happened.  She didn't say that it must have happened for a reason, and she acknowledged that it's something you never get over.

Then she told me that in addition to having four boys, she had seven miscarriages.  Most of them around 8 weeks, but one at 12 weeks.  She said that she especially grieved for that baby, but then she looked at me and said, "But your loss was different.  To have to bury your baby..."  She shook her head.  We all looked at Zuzu, crawling across the outdoor rug and we were silent for a few moments, thinking about the sister who isn't here.

And then my new neighbor looked up and said, "Did she look like Caroline?"

I can't tell you how touched I was by that inquiry, how much it meant to me that the conversation didn't just stop, but that she continued to ask questions that weren't specifically related to her death but were actually about Eliza as a person.  My eyes filled up with tears as I nodded my head, "Yes.  Yes she did."

The Block Captain might be a nosy neighbor, but I think she'll be a good one, too.