Well, this may have noth­ing to do with sub­ur­ban sur­vival, or sur­vival­ism as we define it in gen­er­al. But, I found out tonight, my neigh­bor in NJ died from can­cer.  She was old­er, yes.  But a very, very , very nice per­son.  She lived with her son and his wife next door to me.  I most­ly saw her walk­ing their dog (Dex­ter) out­side their house when I was com­ing and going, and she always had a kind word.  Some­how, I know, Dex­ter will miss her.  We would chat very briefly from time to time, but I nev­er knew she had can­cer, and she nev­er men­tioned it.  She nev­er com­plained of pain, nev­er looked like she was suf­fer­ing.

I was on my way out the door to meet a friend when I heard about it this evening.  That was about five hours ago.  Now it is almost 11:00 p.m. EST, and I am final­ly real­iz­ing, I will not see her walk­ing Dex­ter tomor­row, or get to exchange those kind words again.  A somber moment, for sure, when you real­ize a sim­ple moment is gone for­ev­er.

She was one of the few neigh­bors I knew or com­mu­ni­cat­ed with in my neigh­bor­hood.  She kept to her­self, did­n’t seem to pass judge­ment, and appar­ent­ly did not look or sym­pa­thy in pub­lic.  She was a nice lady, that I sud­den­ly wish I got to know more.  I’ll miss her.

Well, sor­ry for a rant, but it was a very per­son­al moment, and I felt like I had to share it with some­one.  There was no one here to share it with when I got home, so I hope you under­stand. 🙂

Be good to one anoth­er.