The party was mostly people from the neighborhood and from my old job. At the time he was born, Erick and I had lived in this house for 7 years, and even though we didn't necessarily hang out in each other's houses, we all knew each other. And everyone loved Quinn.
Marcy lives just behind and kitty-corner to us across the alley. She and her husband, Jack, live in a beautiful Victorian house with an amazing garden. Marcy is something of a horticultural mystic and it wasn't unusual for her yard and house to be on garden tours in the summer.
When we first moved here and Erick started working out in the yard a lot, he and Marcy bonded over plants. I remember distinctly one weekend when E had gone outside for just a few minutes, and I hadn't heard or seen anything from him more than a hour later. When I peeked outside, there he and Marcy were. They both had a shovel in one hand and a wheelbarrow full of plants headed for our yard. They had started chatting and eventually E had more than twenty different plants ready to be replanted in our yard. They were talking about watering, sun, fertilizer. They both couldn't have been happier.
The entire neighborhood is covered with the offspring of plants from Marcy's garden.
As Quinn grew older, he began thinking that everyone's house in the neighborhood was fair game. It wasn't unheard of for him to take off on me during a walk, up someone's sidewalk, and through their front door - if they were silly enough to have it unlocked. He particularly loved Marcy's house. We would show up unannounced, and Marcy would get all excited. She would disappear upstairs and reappear with a box of toys for Quinn to play with. As time went on and his passion for baking and cooking developed, he just went straight for her kitchen. More than once he emptied her cabinets and proceeded to make "lasagna". And Marcy loved it.
Marcy was always happy, smiling, and quick with kind words and encouragement.
But during the last two years it was clear something was changing. She lost a lot of weight. She wasn't outside nearly as much, tending to her precious garden. Talking to her often became a repetition, with her saying the same things over and over. Her hearing got worse. I would see her walk by our front window, shuffling a bit, head down.
Finally was told that she had Alzheimer's. About the same time she started coming to our back door, wanting help on her computer. I would go over to her house and she would want my help trying to make money filling out surveys online. She would have hundreds of emails from these ridiculous websites, and I spent some time trying to talk her out of wasting her time. But, it was obvious that she was fading.
During the last couple of months we've seen her less and less. And since Christmas their lights haven't been on at night. We thought something was up, but didn't know what.
It snowed like crazy the night before last. Woke up to an extra five inches on the ground. We started shoveling out the driveway to my car could get out without having to ride on the snow. Our neighbor came out to say "thanks" for the Christmas card, and told me that both Marcy and Jack were gone. Found out that Jack, too, had Alzheimer's; he was apparently better at hiding it.
They were in Portland with their daughter. They couldn't live alone anymore.
What precipitated it was that Jack, having taken Marcy to the hospital for something minor, had forgotten to pick her up. For hours. He forgot where she was.
So. Shoveling snow. That heavy, wet, snowman-type snow. And I had to stop. And cry. These sweet, lovely people who had been a source of brightness in my life, and the life of this neighborhood, were gone. And we hadn't been able to say goodbye.
A reminder not to put off telling people what they mean to you, how they bring light to your life. And not to forget how truly fragile we all are.
And how fragile our connections can be. And how quickly they can disappear.
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