Sooner or Later Came Much Too Soon

by Cathy

We live in a six-unit building. Our condo shares the same deck space with our next door neighbors. These neighbors of ours have lived next door to us for 13 years. I have watched as they went from a single woman living alone and working ungodly hours, to a couple, to getting married and having her husband move in with her, to getting pregnant and having a baby. That baby, Grace, is now eight years old. My daughters are almost 11 and six.

My neighbors and we have watched our girls grow up together, as close as sisters can be. Playdates have consisted of knocking on each other's door at any hour of any day. Oh, the convenience of it all!

One particular playdate, years ago when Grace was about two or three and in the midst of being potty-trained, will never be forgotten. As we adults chatted, drank and laughed away out on the deck one beautiful summer night after having barbequed some serious gourmet burgers, our girls played Barbies in their room, in our house. Suddenly, Bella ran out and frantically announced, "Gracie just went poo-poo on the carpet!" All four chairs slid back across the deck at once and Traci, Grace's mom, was already heading to her house to grab her portable steamer-vac.

Side note: What you must know about Traci is that she is the perfect neighbor. Correction, she is the perfect Martha Stewarty neighbor. She's my go-to person when someone gets sick, when I needed help with a DIY project around the house, when I needed an ingredient, a tool, a dutch oven, tacky glue, books, corn syrup, carpet cleaner, a lemon zester/garlic press, fresh parsley, soil fertilizer, or when I needed to shred some papers.  So it makes sense that she does have a steamer vac and many other practical appliances and ingredients and cleansers and doodads that we would never think of buying, just in case.

When we got to the girls' room, we found not only poop smeared on the carpet but apparently, Gracie had stuffed a Barbie doll down her pants to prevent the poop from coming out at such an inconvenient time. Princess Barbie was now sporting a poop coat and matching poop hat. I looked over at Traci, who is always so prim, proper and polite, and thought she would faint out of sheer shock. Her horrified look and wide eyes said it all, but that didn't deter her from mechanically settling in and attacking the problem step by painstakingly, methodical step. A half-hour later, despite my pleading to 'just leave it be' and it was 'more than clean' Traci had pretty much steam vac-ed the entire bedroom crouched down on her knees while the men were yucking it up on the deck enjoying their third bottle of wine, when clearly, we should have been the ones having some shots.

We have not only shared poop but houses, cars, decks, toys, garage space, disagreements, parenting skills, recipes, decorating tips, business advice, secrets, several bottles of good wine drunk out of Waterford glasses (because, as they would say, "What are we saving them for?"), laughter, tears and the Magic Box (a small, lidded yard shed filled with balls, games, play-doh, mats, cute fold-up chairs, scooters, and the magic blanket, always laid out so our girls can make a fort out of umbrellas or sprawl out the million little Polly Pocket pieces and American Girl doll accessories comfortably). Hell, we would have shared ONE HOUSE if we knocked down that firewall and installed a revolving door and time-shared our husbands out as we had always joked.

Since they were in diapers, our girls have waddled around on our deck, splashed around in a kiddie pool which Traci and I filled with countless buckets of water hoisted from our bathtubs, decorated cookies, ran through sprinklers, had snowball fights, planted flowers, swung on swings hung from our deck beams and had scooter races in our alley . We knew we wouldn't live next to each other forever and that sooner or later, this blissful convenience of having this "perfect extended family" next door would have to end. And that time came one month ago when they announced that they would be putting their condo on the market. 'Okay,' I thought. 'That should take some time.' But it didn't. Two weeks later, they got an offer and have set the closing date for mid-April. Just. Like. That.

These neighbors of ours have taught me many things, helped us through many things and cannot ever be replaced. What other neighbor would offer to drop off and pick up Bella from school in the middle of an arctic winter every day for months so that I wouldn't have to take my newborn, Ari, out in the frigid temps?

The other day, Traci called to tell me that she will leave the Magic Box out on the deck for us. That is when it hit me. Blubbering through the phone, I thanked her. Then she began to cry. Together, for a long, lingering while, we quietly had a moment that summed up the 13 years of life we have shared -  which was more than any words could ever say.`