checking up

I had taken to studying outside on my front porch. It is wide, airy and relatively quiet. And I could keep an eye on the neighborhood, Nosy Nancy that I am. While reading the days of the week aloud in Arabic one beautiful afternoon, a woman came into my front yard to speak to me. She was concerned about a man who had approached her young daughter on this very street and wanted to know if I knew who it might be so she could check it out.

This had apparently happened during the 5 minutes it took me to make a cup of coffee and come back outside. An older gentleman had been standing in his front yard and asked this girl to come into his house to listen to his machine for him. She apologized and refused, then headed straight home. What a level-headed girl. That mother should be proud. After hearing this chain of events, I knew exactly who it was and I was immediately saddened, knowing that the old man meant no harm and most likely did need help. I reassured the mother that I would check it out for her and get back to her.

The 80+ year old man who lived two doors down is one of the sweetest old men alive. His wife was taken to the hospital two, maybe three days prior. I was curious if he was stopping passers-by for conversation because he was lonely or if he genuinely needed help. So I got neighborly and paid him a visit. He is very hard of hearing, so when he didn't answer the front door, I walked around to the back. He was sitting on his porch, watching the birds in the back yard, as I often saw him doing this time of day. I asked him if there was anything he needed and he jumped up (as well as an 80 year-old man can) and grinned at me, leading me into his sunroom.

"Why yes! How? How did you know that I was needing your help? Thank you so very much for coming down here. I can't hear my message machine." He tapped his gnarled old finger on a yellow tablet of paper and said, "Could you please write down that message? I missed the call and I can't hardly hear anymore and my wife is in the hospital and can't do my hearing for me."

It wasn't the call he was waiting for, but he was glad to get the message nonetheless. It was from someone else calling to check in on him.

They moved soon after. They sold their house to move to a care facility close to one of their sons' families. As many times as I've seen an ambulance parked out there, I am glad they are now under close watch.

In today's world, it stinks that an old man must sit alone and wait for someone to guess that he needs help because there aren't any real "neighbors" anymore. It stinks that when he does venture out to seek help, he is immediately suspicioned of harming children. It stinks that I hadn't thought to go check on him. In my neighborhood, where the young families are slowly moving in as the older couples move out to care facilities, we ought to take it upon ourselves to check on our elders. After all, it's only neighborly.