Come On In

“Come on in” and “How the heck are ya’?” These are words I long to hear again. With most of our neighbors behind security fences and locked up tightly, it’s rare that anyone knocks on a door just to visit and say hello.

I first encountered Jack when my daughter Kelsey and I were searching the neighborhood for a wandering cat. Jack was out for his daily walk with his walker. “Come by and see me sometime,” he said as we parted ways.

We tried a couple times to knock on his door with no luck.  Then we learned from another neighbor that the trick was to go around back to his kitchen door. Really? Do people still do that? And so I did. I hesitantly creaked open his gate, feeling like an interloper. I walked behind his house and right up to his kitchen door. And there he was. Jack was sitting at his kitchen table watching his little television. “Come on in!” he beckoned.

This was the beginning of a friendship. I wish it had been a long friendship, but that was not meant to be. At the time, Jack was 87 years old and already in poor health.

As we got to know each other, Jack shared stories about his life. I had a feeling as I listened to each new story that I would be hearing them again. Like the story of how that cute nurse who took care of him following a tragic accident became his wife.

I’d like to say that I visited often, but I didn’t. Sometimes several weeks would pass before I’d open the gate and be greeted at the kitchen window with “Come on in!” On some visits, I’d have one of my family members with me, and we’d all sit and visit. He wanted to know about each of us. He wanted to know how to use his computer, and we happily tried to teach him, albeit with very little success. We invited him to family parties and celebrations. One of my favorite memories was when he came to our house for an old-fashioned backyard 4^th of July barbecue. It wasn’t anything fancy or spectacular, just a small group of family and friends in the backyard, but he laughed and smiled the whole time, and over the next couple years he reminded us several times about how much fun he’d had in our backyard that night.

That’s what was great about Jack and our time together. It was always those simple things that made him happy, like the time my husband, Terry, fixed a loose board on his floppy gate and the time Terry replaced a burned out string of Christmas lights with a functioning set for Jack’s kitchen window. I remember his words that night. He said, “You people are so nice to me.” It was almost embarrassing to accept praise for something so simple.

Jack also had his spirited side. He told us how much he loved watching the Summer Olympics, but I suspect that, for him, it was really all about the Swedish women’s beach volleyball team. One day, while returning him home from a dental appointment, I realized that I had parked too closely to his shrubs on the passenger side. I laughed and said, ‘Jack, I don’t know how to drive my car.” His response? “You drive just fine. You just don’t know how to park.”

And, as predicted, over time those family stories of his that were once new to me became repeated and familiar. I took comfort in them and happily listened again and again.

After Jack turned 90 years old, our visits shifted to a room at a nursing home. He’d had a stroke and was on a decline. He knew that he would not be returning home again, but he never lost his cheerfulness. Then, after his 91^st birthday, I stayed away for several weeks because I’d had a cold. One day when I was feeling better, I had an urgent, inexplicable need to go see Jack. When I got to his room, a nurse was tending to him. She looked at me with that look that you never want to see from a nurse. Jack was too weak to speak, but I sat for a few minutes, held his hand, and told him that I loved him. The next morning we got a call from his son. Jack had passed away.

Jack taught me a lot during the four years that we were friends. Sometimes good things can come from tragic accidents. You can never have too many dahlias in your backyard. Family and friends and neighbors are always welcome.

Sometimes when I walk past that empty house, I pretend that I can still hear those words. “Come on in. How the heck are ya’?”