The Man Next Door

We moved in during a freaky April 1st. snowstorm. A man in a fisherman’s yellow rain coat was already there clearing our driveway. He shook our hand and said “I am Paul. Welcome to the neighborhood.”  The end of that year Paul and his wife sold their home and moved away.

 New Year’s Day 1999

We met our new neighbors Joel and Sally. They invited us to their New Year’s party which became an annual event. Joel was quick to introduce me to Annie Berry, a psychologist new to the area who became a good friend and colleague.

Judy, anxious in social situations in those days, blurted out as she greeted her hosts:

“It’s nice to be invited to your home. The other people never invited us in.”

Across the room sat the former neighbor looking apologetic.

Joel relished the retelling of this scene…..   “Remember the time  when Judy….”

Through many years we got to enjoy Sally and Joel often attending  many events in our village that they helped make happen.  Sally invited me to exhbit paintings at the New Church. Joel asked me to officiate  at weddings in historic Kelley Chapel.  Sally did flower arrangements from her garden and Joel got the wood stove going on cold days for the couple. Sally attended my Taize services. After Joel lost Sally he came too.  Joel was there lending a hand during our major Healthsigns events including the GAYLA Ball.

 

 

Pandemic 2020

Advice from grandmother Conchetta via my mother:

Always be nice to your neighbors for those are the people who are closest to you if you need them.

Time stood still, for once. Our trip to Italy was cancelled. We stayed inside,  had our food delivered and did pick-up.

Ironically, grace still abounded allowing us to make space for each other.

Zoom Time.  Instead of Italy we had “Mes Amies” a group we met on a Road Scholar tour to France in 2019. We comforted each other through caring and laughing together discussing everything from  movies and books to politics and always our future dreams of travel.

Judy studied Italian, I studied classical guitar with teachers from Toronto to Dublin. I painted and wrote and zoomed into London for astrology webinars.

And we baked!  Bread, pizza, foccacia, key lime pie… a portion for Joel was delivered to his side door and placed on his bench.

Joel called us reguarly, “Guess what I got you today! Did you eat your dinner yet?”

He left on our garden wall gifts of oysters, clams, empanadas, potatoes au gratin, Italian pastry.  One day during a Mes Amies zoom session we heard the mailbox.  It was Joel leaving his hot fresh baked  baguettes!

 Coming Alive 2022 

Just as the pandemic was lessening, my published memoir was delivered to my door in March of 2022. My first signed copy I gave to Joel. Now I visited in person and sat across from him in a winged back chair in his late 18th century home.

He told me he was planning to host an opening in my honor at our Cultural Center with a book signing.

Over sixty people came including a ragtime pianist Sue Keller from Orleans.  Annie helped organize with a special introduction as I shared selections from “Coming Alive.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Provincetown 2024

Over the past year Joel confronted a severe illness making it impossible to breathe without oxygen.  We saw his car in the driveway more frequently. Our little dog Dolce led Judy to his door many mornings so they could see how he was doing.  I shared books of favorite writers with him: Eugene O’Neil and Edna St. Vincent Millay who knew his mother  in Maine. As a thank you to us we all went to see “Next to Normal” at Eventide Theatre in Dennis. The next day he told me he couldn’t sleep as the stirring family relationships in the play had so impressed upon him.

Last May he called and said he really wanted to go to the Provincetown Theatre to see “Angels in America.” He was worried that he wouldn’t have enough oxygen as the production was three hours long.

Judy’s doctor radar was up and warned me “Don’t let him drive!”

“That’s fine. I will drive.”  He implored me to go.

I carried the sadness that this could be his last adventure to Ptown.

“Angels in America”

He called me and said he had arranged with the theatre to plug in his oxygen.

“Since you are doing the driving I want to treat you to the “best lobster rolls” in Truro on the way.”

He was coughing all the way down but full of anticipation and joy. I was nervous though calm on the outside. The lobster rolls took a while to prepare in the little village store while Joel waited outside. Filled with fresh meat I couldn’t wait to get it in my mouth but the play was about to start in 10 minutes!  I dropped him off in front of the theatre and went down Bradford St. to find a place to park.

Carrying two lobster rolls on a hot day I hurried in and asked the bartender if he would refrigerate them.

The theatre held up the performance as they forgot he was coming and needed to set up.  We were escorted in and seated in the front row.

An intense play from the early AIDS tragedy and the homophobia of Roy Cohn who took Donald Trump under his wings. During the two intermissions we ate the fantastic lobster ….after the performance Joel went over to the actor who played Cohn to congratulate him.

Mission Accomplished but not yet…

“I would love to show you where my family spent some wonderful summers. It’s not far from here.”

We drove up a hill in Truro  overlooking Provincetown Harbor. There was the house he and Sally and his three daughters had vacationed in for years.

“Get out of the car and go around the house to the front. No one is around.  I want you to see it.”

The view was magnificent!  Wish I could have set up an easel right there and then.

When the end came in August it was quick. We were coming home from a memorial service of a friend, when Judy got a call on her cell.  It was Joel’s  daughter.  She told us his grandson had arrived that morning, they had brought tomatoes to his friends and he was about to take his afternoon rest.

 

What was to be his last phone conversation with me touched me deeply:  “I love all your many ways…. Anne, I am so fond of you.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“Unforgetable for Joel”