My Norman Rockwell World
The house next door to the one that we were considering buying had been damaged in a fire. Its appearance was so harrowing that on the day of our tour, a film crew was using it to dramatize a rescue operation.
Our eyesore neighbor did not discourage Tommy and me; in fact we welcomed its haunted exterior because it measurably lowered the price of our potential home.
Eventually, a modern brick townhouse replaced the burned-out wooden frame. But more important than the value the restoration added to our house, was the richness of neighbors we met along the block.
How can I ever forget, or praise enough, the neighbors who had at first welcomed us with potted plants and home-baked treats, then 12 years later, assisted the ambulance drivers as they brought Tommy home from the hospital for hospice,
But on that day in 2000, we had not a crystal ball to foretell the importance of kindly folk, or life's unfortunate surprises, so now in the last decade of my life (I turned 83 in August). I'm reminded of how wise my second husband and I were to ignore our next- door blemish, and take the leap.
For me, it was definitely the front porch of the two-story worker's cottage's frame house. I envisioned it a perch, dissimilar from the folding chairs that lined the concrete sidewalk of Division St. on summer nights in my 1940's childhood, but equal in pleasure to the daily tableau.
As it turned out, the porch's landing, and the half dozen steps that led up to it, became my realm. Newspaper in hand, coffee cup at my right, and Buddy, the Golden Retriever we adopted soon after the house, attached to my left hip, were accessories in my first class box seat.
Thus assembled, I could watch my across-the-street neighbor teach his daughter the pitch she would use to dazzle high school challengers. Another parent could be seen with hand fastened to the seat of a two-wheeler as her child wobbled before righting himself for a ride down the block. There was more; my street cinema was as heartwarming as a Hallmark special and the homey paintings of Norman Rockwell.
For my husband's first view, it was the potential of a vegetable garden in the land that stretched from a backyard deck to a garage. There was also a small front patch that would annually grace the wooden frame with yellow tulips magically blossoming after Tommy gently placed their bulbs in scooped out soil nests.
The Dog Park -- perhaps that should've been first in the neighborhood's attributes -- was the central meeting spot and daily tabloid for the half dozen of us who were out and about soon after sunrise.
And if my memory is intact, it was during one of those mornings when an astute friend pulled me aside to wonder if Tommy was okay.
In 2009, my husband veered from the easygoing guy he had been to someone whose words were hard to come by, and at times, absent a filter. Observations were harsh and atypical.
Frontal Temporal Degeneration had sneaked its way into our idyllic, Norman Rockwell, life. This little-known illness eventually robbed him of all speech, ended his driving of a beloved car, and turned me and dear neighbors into security guards who would monitor him if outside on his own.
Despite his disease, he was a keen participant at two neighborhood celebrations: our annual block party and Fourth of July parade.
Tommy's brain may have thwarted speech, but his adherence to health and physical fitness never left him. Vegetarian hot dogs were his potluck donation to the parties that revelled with games for the kids, and gossip for adults. And we could count on his being in the parade lineup astride his treasured red Schwinn.
Oftimes real life continues to interrupt picturesque. Both Tommy and Buddy died in 2012, and despite neighbors' offers of continued help, I put the house on the market, sold our two cars, and moved to a city highrise.
I am always invited to annual block parties, and at times, I've accepted. On one occasion, the new owners invited me to view their updating of our old house. Fortunately, much in the interior had been changed, so I couldn't mourn the space.
But the bench we had purchased from a Chicago Public School student artists exhibit, remained on one side of the porch. I sat on its painted slats for a bit, then, as I descended the steps, I held tightly to the banister, partially for safety, but more to absorb the enduring memories; most were marvelous, others, life.