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Illustration by Alex Siklos
For over half my life, I’ve been able to look out my kitchen window and see my neighbour, Walter, going about his day, puttering in his garden, preparing for the season ahead – and I’ve loved knowing he was always there, steady as rain.
I was just 26, newly married and pregnant, when I moved into the small semi that shared a driveway with his. While unpacking, I heard a knock and found him and his wife standing at my back door, ruddy-faced and beaming. Handing me a bushel of apples he’d picked, he said, “I am Walter. This is Kathy. Welcome good neighbours,” and left.
Those apples were just what I needed for my persistent morning sickness, but I’d no idea at the time that those neighbours would be an antidote for life’s struggles. We lived peacefully in close proximity for 35 years, coming to know each other through our day-to-day ebb and flow – chatting, lending a helping hand, keeping a watchful eye, never overstepping. It was a special bond.
Most of our interactions took place in the backyard – which was Walter’s domain. He was busy, sun-up to sun-down and watching what he was up to became an endless source of fascination for my daughters and me. Whether drying fruit on his rooftop for cider, chopping kindling from downed neighbourhood trees or curing Polish sausage in his reclaimed smoker, it was an adventure in zero-waste living and nose-to-tail cuisine. Once, he returned from a morning hunt – somewhere – with a bag of dead birds which he plucked for feather pillows and roasted for dinner. From the first winter thaw to spring, Walter prepared his tiny plot of land for planting, then tended it with care. As summer waned and days grew shorter, he transformed his harvest into a winter’s worth of preserves.
Though he lived by the seasons, fishing was Walter’s year-round passion. He’d return with enormous salmon, mounds of smelt or slippery catfish, then sit for hours on a tree stump, gutting them. My squealing kids would snip heads and fins as rivulets of blood and scales ran down our driveway. Without children of his own, Walter enjoyed having them around. His catch was often celebrated with extended family, many of whom he’d helped settle in Canada. Parties spilled over our joint yards complete with string lights, Polish vodka, Kathy’s Ukrainian specialties and dancing under Walter’s mulberry tree. At day’s end, there’d be a plate of tasty fried fish at my back door.
After my divorce, Water began quietly helping me out – repairing my car, taking out the garbage if I forgot, shovelling when I worked late. He taught me how to snake a toilet, replace a fuse and back my car down our extremely narrow driveway without a scratch. One Christmas, when my daughter announced there was a waterfall in her bedroom, Walter and his brother climbed up on my treacherous roof and chipped away ice. I thanked him with a hug and a good bottle of whisky, more grateful than he could know. As my mother was dying, Walter promised her he’d look out for me. True to his word, through my toughest years, he was a door-knock away.
With his solid character, reliability and acts of kindness, Walter burrowed deep into my heart. Like my mum, he’d come from humble roots, seen tragedy and the ravages of war as a child – in the Second World War his father was shot outside his family home while he hid – but was always smiling, laughing and story-telling. He was the closest thing I had to a father, though mine was alive at the time. We loved each other a lot.
Seasons passed and life took its twists and turns. Walter was elated when I remarried, sad when my kids left, relieved when I retired. As he aged, our roles slowly reversed. I helped him navigate life as he cared for his faltering wife and became more frail himself.
The day he died, he teased me about backing my car out badly after teaching me so well, then stopped traffic so I could safely drive away. I waved, saying, “I have good days and bad days, Walter!” He laughed and said “Me too!” That night, I dialled 911 frantically while my husband administered CPR to my beloved neighbour. Walter had saved my life years before in a car accident near home, lifting a vehicle off me single-handedly with a steel pole, and I felt devastated that neither we, nor the paramedics, could save him.
I thought I’d never get that image out of my head. But, as autumn sets in, I see birds and small animals out back preparing for the cold and I’m reminded of my friend. Just weeks before, I’d watched him standing under his trellis plucking juicy blackberries off his vine, a little mid-morning snack in the sun. For everything, there’s a season. Walter was in the winter of his life. He’d lived well and enjoyed his bounty.
I’ll think of him whenever I eat an apple. I’ll always call his favourite flowers “Glory Mornings.” And I’ll forever be grateful to be alive because of him. I know I’ll miss him, but consider myself lucky to have had him so long, just across the way.
Shirley Phillips lives in Toronto.