Goodbye Reggie

My neighbors, Reggie and Mags, live right across the street. They don't have much of a front porch, but they do have a couple of kitchen chairs that they have in their carport and that's where they sit during the summer. They like to watch my husband and I putter around in the yard. It's a funny feeling being someone's pasttime. I don't mind it except when my bottom is up in the air because I'm weeding the flowerbed. I'm sure they are just sitting over there talking about how wide it is. My husband insists they have more important things to talk about than my posterior side, but I just don't know.

Reggie was sick off and on, but an old, good natured guy. A couple weeks ago a big van came by and dropped off a hospital bed and some oxygen stuff. Hubby said it wouldn't be too much longer now. Mags looks like she's in a roller coaster car that's about to roll down the big drop. She sees it coming but can't do anything about it. I hold my husband a lot tighter at night than I have for a while.

Sure enough, Sunday we were out in the yard and Mags's sister Louella was sitting there in the carport where Reggie usually sits. Reggie was gone for good.

It's harder to sit on the porch now and not see anyone in that carport. A "for sale" sign went up in the yard two days ago. I'm gonna miss them both. We always had fun yelling stuff across the yard. Mags and I often stood at the mailbox and talked. From our porch we could see across their yard to the garden. Every year they had a huge garden and often brought us extra produce. The year before there was a drought and because they were on Social Security they could not afford the water they needed to keep the garden up. This year Reggie was sick. Again no garden. The fenced in spot is choked with weeds and rife with neglect.

There's probably a metaphor for life in there somewhere.