Great neighbors are rare. I don’t know what I’ll do without Walter

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For more than half of my life, I was able to look out my kitchen window and watch my neighbor Walter go about his day, working in his garden and preparing for the coming season – and I loved knowing that he was always there was, steady as rain.

I was just 26, newly married and pregnant when I moved into the small semi-detached house that shared the driveway with him. As I was unpacking, I heard a knock and found him and his wife standing at my back door, flushed and beaming. He handed me a bushel of apples he had picked and said, “I’m Walter. This is Kathy. Welcome, good neighbors,” and left.

These apples were exactly what I needed for my persistent morning sickness, but little did I know at the time that these neighbors would be an antidote to life’s problems. We lived peacefully in close proximity for 35 years and got to know each other through the ups and downs of everyday life – chatting, helping, keeping a watchful eye and never crossing boundaries. It was a special bond.

Most of our interactions took place in the backyard – Walter’s domain. He was busy from sunrise to sunset and wUnderstanding what he was up to became an endless source of fascination for my daughters and me. Whether he was drying fruit on his roof for cider, chopping kindling from fallen neighborhood trees, or smoking Polish sausage in his used smoker, it was an adventure in zero-waste living and nose-to-tail cooking. He once returned from a morning hunt somewhere with a bag of dead birds, which he picked for feather pillows and roasted for dinner. From the first winter thaw until spring, Walter prepared his small piece of land for planting and then carefully tended it. As summer ended and the days grew shorter, he turned his harvest into canned goods for the winter.

Although he followed the seasons, fishing was Walter’s passion year-round. He would come back with huge salmon, piles of smelt, or slimy catfish and then sit on a stump for hours to gut them. My screaming children sliced ​​off heads and fins while streams of blood and scales ran down our driveway. Without children of his own, Walter enjoyed having them around. His catch was often celebrated among extended family, many of whom he had helped settle in Canada. Parties raged on our shared farms with fairy lights, Polish vodka, Kathy’s Ukrainian specialties and dancing under Walter’s mulberry tree. At the end of the day, there was a plate of delicious fried fish at my back door.

After my divorce, Water quietly began helping me—fixing my car, taking out the trash when I forgot, and shoveling when I worked late. He taught me how to navigate a toilet, change a fuse, and back my car through our extremely narrow driveway without a scratch. One Christmas, when my daughter announced that there was a waterfall in her bedroom, Walter and his brother climbed onto my treacherous roof and chipped away at the ice. I thanked him with a hug and a good bottle of whiskey, more grateful than he could have imagined. When my mother was dying, Walter promised her that he would take care of me. True to his word, he was just a stone’s throw away during my toughest years.

With his solid character, his reliability and his friendliness, Walter has engraved himself deep in my heart. Like my mother, he came from a humble background, had experienced tragedy and the devastation of war as a child – during World War II, his father was shot outside his family home while hiding – but was always smiling, laughing and telling stories. He was the closest father I had, even though mine was still alive at the time. We loved each other very much.

The seasons passed and life took its turns. Walter was delighted when I remarried, sad when my children left, and relieved when I retired. As he grew older, our roles slowly reversed. I helped him navigate life as he cared for his frail wife and became increasingly frail himself.

The day he died, he teased me about reversing my car hard after he taught me so well, then stopped traffic so I could drive away safely. I waved and said, “I have good days and bad days, Walter!” He laughed and said, “Me too!” That night, I frantically dialed 911 while my husband performed CPR on my beloved neighbor. Walter had saved my life years ago in a car accident near my home by lifting a vehicle off me with just a steel bar, and I was devastated that neither we nor the paramedics could save him.

I thought I would never get this image out of my head. But as fall sets in, I see birds and small animals outside preparing for the cold, and I’m reminded of my friend. Just a few weeks earlier, I had watched him stand under his trellis, picking juicy blackberries from his vine, a mid-morning snack in the sun. There is a season for everything. Walter was in the winter of his life. He had lived a good life and enjoyed his gift.

I will think of him whenever I eat an apple. I will always call his favorite flowers “Glory Mornings.” And I will forever be grateful that I am alive because of him. I know I’ll miss him, but I feel lucky to have had him across the street for so long.

Shirley Phillips lives in Toronto.