Neighbours

I was out tending to the shrubbery around our house this morning, when my neighbour from behind us came over for a little chat.  Seems she was out of the country at the time of the accident and did not hear about it.

She began the chat with "I haven't seen your wife around for a while".  I kind of expect these things to pop up from time to time.  So I explained to her what happened.  She teared up.  I teared up.  It was awkward.  The she told me about how Kim used to say hi to her all the time when she took our dog blue and went for a run.  Kim would talk to anybody, about anything.  The neighbour also talked about how Kim used to play with their dog, and just plain be very friendly towards them.  That was Kim.

She also told me about an accident she was involved in a few years ago that almost took HER life.  Because of that, she doesn't work anymore.  You live behind someone for ten years and don't say peep (Kim was the talker, not me), and then in one twenty minute chat, you find out so much.   We bid each other "so long" and she continued on her morning constitutional, while I continued to water the hedge.

Neighbours can be interesting people.  They say good fences make good neighbours.  I subscribe to that theory big time.  In the days after the accident, there was all sorts of media coverage.  When reporters from the various TV stations would summarize their reports, sometimes from right outside my house, they would talk about what kind of person Kim was, etc.  They got all of this from our neighbours, whom we (or at least I) rarely spoke with.  I subsequent chats with my various neighbours, I could figure out who said what, when.  That old CSI training I spoke of before.

I get the sense now that the neighbourhood is "watching over" Adam and I now, which on one hand is pretty cool, but, on the other hand, can be a bit unnerving.  I'm a private person, of sorts (This Blog & Facebook aside).  But I'll allow myself to be "comforted" when the situation calls for comfort.  I will chat periodically with our neighbours, but I am just not the social butterfly that Kim was.  They say opposites attract.  Truer words were never spoken.