I still remember how the ambulance’s lights bounced on and off my bedroom walls, flashing into the night. The red lights spilled everywhere, painting everything they touched with a crimson glow.
But that wasn’t the first time. That year, those lights showed up, a few times, for my 80ish-year-old neighbor Joe. Because with a pacemaker precisely placed beneath his skin, his heart’s rhythm required many rescues; every few months, it seemed, an ambulance’s sirens blared into my neighborhood, as paramedics rushed down our narrow streets to his home.
Each time, I watched from my window. I witnessed him strapped to a stretcher, then rolled away. For whatever reason, I always felt that he would be okay, I felt hopeful, and without fail, he always returned home.
That night was different.
That night, I don’t know why, but after I noticed the ambulance parked out front, I felt a difference in the air. And maybe that’s cliché to say, but it is true. That night, there was no sense of okay, that night, there was no sense of hope, that night, there was only an unexplainable sense of dread. I sat down. I sank into my bed, and stared vacantly out my window. And I just knew.
I remember, at some point, I touched my face and felt tears.
He never returned home.
Before Joe passed, I saw him nearly every day, in the background. Sometimes, in the early morning, when I opened my curtains, I would see him already in his front yard, or standing in his garage, with a leaf blower or fiddling with some tool in his hand. Often, when I would back out of my driveway, I would look up and catch a glimpse of him in my rearview mirror, shuffling around his Juniper plants, and landscape rocks and pebbles, watering Rosemary, or admiring his succulents. But mostly, and by this, I mean, almost always, I found him messing around, under the hood, or sitting in the gray interior of his red 1987 Toyota pickup truck. He loved that truck.
After Joe passed, everything changed. His yard became quiet and less vibrant, his plants withered with muted colors, his garage door stayed closed down, and his beloved red truck collected dust, while sitting parked in the street, empty and motionless.
These changes began to live in the foreground of my mind.
I wasn’t close to Joe. Yes, we gave each other friendly waves, smiles with cheerful good mornings, and always chatted when we crossed paths. But I didn’t know him with the depth that I would love to know everyone. And now I never will. That doesn’t make him any less important, or his absence any less heavy, and any less noticeable.
And I can’t help but feel a tenderness about how much is happening around me, within proximity and outside my proximity. I think a lot about my fears and aches around impermanence but its importance to the wholeness of life. I think about the unfairness that anything or anyone should come into this life only to eventually flicker away too soon. I think about the absences noticed and felt. The ones that are not. And it is truly too much.
I worry about all that happens in the background of our lives, my life, and how much I’m missing, not paying enough attention to. How much life is beginning, unfolding, and ending around me, with and without my knowing.
I struggle to accept change and endings.
However, a week after Joe passed, in the bright blankness of an ordinary sleepy Sunday morning, just after the sun made itself known, something miraculous happened, and his truck was not alone.
As I sat on my porch, I noticed another neighbor, a father, and his teenage son, a lanky boy with a mop of silky black hair. The father carried a bucket, sponge, towels, and a jug of soap. They headed towards the truck. With nobody else nearby, I watched them get to work.
Joe loved this truck. I overheard my neighbor proclaim with his arm stretched across the hood. I watched him smile to himself. He carefully scrubbed away each layered film of filth, until the dull red became so bright it shimmered under the sizzle of the sun. Then I watched his teenage son, who silently watched his father bring back the color, but more than anything, bring back to life the truck that belonged to a man who wasn’t even alive to drive it.
Perhaps because I’m often too precious about many, if not, most things, I couldn’t help but think about how lovely tiny moments like this, pretty pockets of humanity, in their simplest and purest form, are often the perfection and light needed in such a wondrous, but frightfully flawed world.
I remember, at some point, I touched my face and felt tears.
Daily, I see and pass by Joe’s home. I see his yard, his garage, his plants, and of course, his red truck. I continue to notice his absence. And so of course, I often think about death. But mostly, I think a lot about life.
I like the idea that it is through being open to the experience of darkness, accepting, instead of avoiding and being afraid, that we can fully access the full spectrum of life, and its abundant palette filled with dark hues, but also, tremendous tints of light, and nuances of incredible joy. That we can then fully experience one another and our own light and joy.
And so, when I see Joe’s red truck, I don’t just think about his absence, I think about the quiet kindness of my neighbor, I think about what his teenage son might have learned that day, I think about how much generosity exists and can exist to fill pockets of pain, I think about all that is happening in the background and foreground of my life and yours, I think about all that is happening with and without our knowing, I think about the beauty of impermanence, and I think about all the brimming light and joy that change and endings can bring.
And for that, I am grateful.
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wow wow, this was such a beautiful and tender piece, Sandra. absolutely loved it 🌷
...beautiful...great eulogy, remembrance and hopeful appreciation of the fullness of being...touching my face and feeling tears :) ...