Susan, Who Is My Neighbor, Never Enough & Rescuing Each Other Part 2
“Tell me about life in your house in 2020,” I ask Susan, who is my neighbor. Like Jet, the abandoned lab-mix that Susan adopted from the pound, this is a story of isolation, loss, and unexpected gifts in the wake of sadness. As with the story of how she moved into her house, she tells this tale with full measures of humor and humanity.Susan begins, “That would have been last year with the pandemic.” I nod and wait. “You know I'm retired, so really my reason for leaving the house is very small. It was really kinda lonely. My daughter has three teenagers at home and her husband. She’s busy with them. My pregnant granddaughter has her husband. Just about all my friends have somebody at their house. Whether they like that person or not,” Susan raises her eyebrows in jest, “they still have somebody. "I'm really not interested in meeting anybody that would want to be my partner or my mate. I have a lot of distrust for people in general. At a certain point you trust everybody, then maybe in your thirties and forties you’re like,” she holds out her hand, tips it side to side. “Then by the time you’re in your sixties, you’re like,” her voice drops to a whisper, “Go away. You are just so full of shit.” Back in a non-whisper she adds, “If you were a good person, you would already be with somebody.”Her logic is clear. “Oh, that's interesting reasoning. Yeah,” I say.
Kind of lonesome
Susan continues, “Twenty-twenty was kind of lonesome. In the beginning of the year I had been mad at my mom. At the end of 2019 she had pissed me off. She is demented, and apparently I don't do well with demented people because I want things to be factual and logical."When she sees me she seems to see me as her slave, right? So she's always telling me what to do. That pisses you off enough, but then to have someone demented telling you what to do—that’s like a double insult!"I would go two or three times a week to see her at the assisted living facility and take roses and stuff. I always left crying. Sometimes I couldn't even take visiting with her; I’d go into the lobby and cry. One day she’s like, (Susan chances her voice for a mock yell) “You just don't do enough for me.”"Okay. You don’t think that’s enough? Wait til you see next year. But as it turned out in 2020, my year to punish her, all of a sudden we’re in quarantine. So then I can’t even make a statement by ignoring her because I can’t see her.”Writing this now I have to pause. I like Susan so much for her raw honesty. Would I be as frank about a fraught relationship? Would I own up to this kind of plan? Or would I, knowing I’m talking to a writer, find polished, hygienic language to present my experience: boundaries, self-care, shielding myself?I say aloud, “Since she has dementia, would she even notice the difference?” Susan says, “It’s really hard to tell. She seems to know who she is, but she doesn’t know there’s anything wrong with her."I did get to see her May first ‘cause they thought she was dying. That was really emotional. I had to have my mask on, I’m sittin on the edge of the bed, and, really, she looks like a corpse.” I gasp, “Oh, dear!”
This is hard
Susan continues, “It’s like it would be best if she died. This is not how she wanted to live. I know that. This is hard. Finally hospice shows up. And they’re chit chatting with me and my mom’s like, WAH WAH WAH!!” — think of an angry adult in a Peanuts movie.Susan flips her tone for the punchline, “Oh, god. She’s fine. She’s fully recovered!” I can't help but laugh with her.Susan explains, “That’s just how she reacts after she has a seizure. Now they know that. She continues to have her seizures. That wasn’t the first one she’d had, but that was something that really got their attention. So they had me come in because it was end-of-life. But then it wasn’t end-of-life. “Later, she asked me if I’d talked to Thelma. That’s one of her sisters. They’re all dead. So I go, Oh, she’s fine, cause I don’t know how to talk to demented people. I go, When’s the last time you saw her? She’s like, Thelma's dead! I don’t talk to dead people.” Just as surprised as Susan must have been, I say, “Shoot! A trick question!” Susan nods, “Yes! Yes, it was a trick question!”
Fighting the whole time
Susan tells me of a visit with her mom in October. “They have a little sunroom so we sat there. We’re supposed to be 6 feet away with masks. She can't hear anything I say, right? I really don't feel like screaming at her. She can't hear me, so I'm writing—but we’re just fighting the whole time. All I have to write on is scraps, so she says, ‘Go into my room and get my yellow pad of paper,’ But I tell her I can't. I can’t go in your room, I have to yell. I’m not allowed. I can’t. I’m like, Oh my god. Oh my god."I sense Susan’s frustration and say, “Sometimes she's lucid enough to ask you a trick question and then other times…” Susan picks up the end, “it’s just fighting the whole time. Which is kinda similar to how she always was.” Reflecting what Susan has said, I say, “It’s a pattern you know.” She nods.
The Funny-Sad Thing
Still thinking of her mom, Susan says, “It would be nice to be able to mourn the loss of her, but she’s still just as mean as ever. The funny-sad thing is that when I first took her over there, I was used to her meanness. So I told them how mean she is, right? And they were like, (gasp) Oh, no! Like what kinda bitch am I? I talk this shit about this old woman that’s dying?“My mom has this whole other side to her—where she’s funny, charming, well-educated. Then she has her mean-mean self which is like the Mother of Mean. Now, three years later, it's like, ‘You’re mom had another seizure last night. Her blood pressure was this, and this was that. But she was at breakfast this morning yelling at everybody so she’s back to her mean old self.’ There you go! Now they all recognize this; the hospice people say, Oh yeah, your mom has her good days, and she’s yellin at us. “She’ll hit ‘em. Throw stuff at ‘em. There she is. That’s her,” Susan says matter-of-factly. I feel a connection with Susan’s story as I take in her sadness—the desire to mourn—mixed with anger and resignation. In the series on Personal Anger I explored my own feelings of grief and anger. In one entry I wrote: “Did my parents love me? Yes. Did it feel like love? No. Both are true.” This comes to mind as I write this story.In the sunny garden with Susan I say, “And all of this is going on in the pandemic when you’re already lonely. Then the few times you see her,” “We fight!” Susan completes the sentence.
I don’t wanna sound terrible
“I don't wanna sound terrible, but Marianna's mom passing away was huge for me.” Marianna lives right next door to me. I'm quite sure that she and her mother Helen have lived here even longer than Susan. During 2020, we didn't see Helen very often. But before the pandemic, our snowy-haired neighbor would wave Hello whenever she saw me. I can still see her—almost five-feet-tall and wearing mint green polyester pants, a pink shirt and a fuzzy yellow sweater. Helen had flair.Secretly, Helen was a news hound. My husband Ken can confirm this because he often witnessed her at the CVS on the corner, paging through the tabloids to keep up with the Kardashians, Caitlin Jenner, and all the celebs. Once fully appraised of all the latest news, Helen thoughtfully returned the magazines to the rack for others to purchase.We had a soft spot in our hearts for Helen. Any time she saw us she would smile and softly unfurl her entire English vocabulary, “God bless you.” I loved this so much! Whatever the state of the world, Helen spoke a blessing over her friends and neighbors.Now she is gone. “Wasn’t that New Year’s Eve?” I ask Susan. “Yeah,” she replies. In fact, in a text thread of holiday greetings Susan let me know of Helen's passing. I thank her again for sharing the news with me.
“So as terrible as that sounds,” says Susan, “that was really good for me—getting to see a person, a real person. I could text my daughter and my cousins all day, but it's not the same as talking to a real person. And of course I talk to my animals, but it’s not the same as…” I finish the sentence, “a conversation." Susan agrees. Face to face is best.
Rescuing each other
Susan continues, “For a while I walked both of my dogs at the same time. But Gemma’s gotten a lot more powerful. Marianne would meet up with us and walk part of the way with us. She would always take Jet. From the first time Marianne saw Jet, she loved him. So it didn’t seem too weird to go and show up with the two dogs at her house after Helen died.”I smile. Early in January I noticed the new ritual. Susan emerges from her house with Jet and Gemma on lead. She walks them across the street, all her will focused on keeping the two under control. Smiling, Marianne is already outside and walking to meet the party. The simplicity and brilliance of this kindness move me. Alone since the death of Helen, Marianne now has something to look forward to every day. And so does Susan. Not only are there dogs to walk, there's someone else to talk to.
Susan tells me, “A lot of my attitude is based on the weather. If it's nice out, I can come out and I’m pretty entertained messing around with my plants.” A quick glance round her garden confirms Susan's definition of entertained: numerous common and rare succulents, potted fruit trees, and a life-sized topiary horse! She smiles, “I have to be a little obsessive compulsive to have it look like this, right? If I have nice weather, I can kinda keep my act together; I get some dirt on me, I spend some time with the dogs. But if it's not nice enough to come outside, then I’m just kinda sad. But now, every day, even if I feel depressed, or I don’t wanna get out of bed, it's like I have to walk the dogs AND Marianne’s waiting for me.” I nod, “She is.”
She loves them
Susan continues referring to Marianne, “And she loves them. The stuff that they do sometimes! You know, it’s not that they’re naughty, or bad or embarrassing. When Jet sees her he is so happy! When he stands up, he’s tall, and he’s up on his back feet hopping! He’s totally hopping up and down. And I’m dying laughing.“Marianne is three years older than me, but I don’t feel like she’s frail or feeble. I don't worry that they’re gonna hurt her. She would come over and she would sit down in the front yard to be next to them and they would knock her on her back! I would be in the driveway trying not to wet my pants. I’d be laughing so hard.“Then I’m like, Oh my god! What does this look like? These two old ladies, one of them trying not to pee her pants and the other one pinned down by this big dog. What is wrong with these two old ladies? But it’s really fun!” Susan’s blue eyes dance as she paints a picture animated by so much shared joy.
Susan—like Jess, and like Julio—describes 2020 as a harsh year. And each one of them has, in their own way, moved through and moved forward. Gathering stories that brim with the unvarnished realities of grief, and allowed to hold another's heartache stitched with hope leaves me with a mild emotional hangover. Fear not, friend; I stop and refresh. I step back and rest.The more answers I find to my question, Who Is My Neighbor, the more I marvel, laugh, and weep. Being allowed into the lived experiences of others—that are not whitewashed, or grammar-checked, or curated for easy consumption—is hard. At the same time, the effort to show up and listen is rewarded again and again. This socially engaged art practice draws on skills we can all employ: genuine attention, patience, a dash of bravery to step out of familiar circles to say hello. Like other forms of art (the really meaningful stuff) it is intentional and a bit risky. And it's worth it!Who Is My Neighbor is a window into our irreducible uniqueness, our irrefutable humanity, and our shared longing to be seen and heard. Thank you, on-line neighbor for spending time with me at this window.
