An old neighbor of ours died last week. When we moved here in 1991, Marnie and her husband Walt were elderly. Walt was losing his sight and Marnie’s slight body was starting to twist and shrink. But for several years, when our children were young, they lived up the hill and across the road in a beautifully tended farmstead.
They loved children. Allen and Anne loved to visit their white, foursquare house which was almost a museum. It was a match made in heaven. During one visit Walt showed Allen a Civil War era walking stick with a lethal miniature sword hidden beneath the cane’s brass tip. Anne spent her time fingering a multi-drawered oak stand that Marnie said had been part of a Coats and Clarks store display.
Marnie watch Anne one day when I had to attend a funeral or a class. They had a ball as Anne was into pretending she was an “Easter Kitty” at the time. Marnie, a founder of our local Humane Society, was more than willing to indulge our little girl’s whims. As part of a World War Two research report, Allen interviewed Walt. Walt headed the WWII Citizen’s Defense program, and Allen came home full of stories. When the report was finished, Allen gave Walt a copy. Several years later, after Walt had died and Marnie was getting ready to move, she brought the report to us. Walt had cherished it, she said, and kept it in his desk drawer.
Though they haven’t lived along our gravel road for years, I miss our old neighbors today. Their passing intensifies my longing for spring to come to our white, icy road. Because when spring comes, the red bud trees that Walt and Marnie planted over a half-century ago will bloom. For a few days the woods by the creek will be purple haze that no camera can wholly capture. I will walk in the presence of beauty so delicate and fleeting that my heart will ache as my eyes drink in vibrant color.
As I walk I will pray that my children will realize how precious were the times when their lives intersected with Walt and Marnie’s. I will pray that a fleeting memory of two beautiful, old people will come to Allen’s mind and Anne’s, and that for a brief and happy moment, their young hearts will ache with the joy they knew when childhood and old age spanned the years and touched their lives.
