Sad Neighborhood News

WARNING: This blog will be intentionally vague to protect the family.

I've got some sad neighborhood news to share... One of our favorite neighbors died this past weekend. Apparently he died while we were on our baseball trip, which is why we missed the initial hub bub on the street. There were a ton of cars at his house on Monday, which I now know were people coming to pay their respects. But since I didn't know what was going on, I just assumed that they were having some sort of weird party on a Monday. I was actually peeved they were blocking my driveway. Of course now I have tremendous guilt that I ever jumped to that conclusion!

Last night Dave and I took a walk around the neighborhood and talked about the whole situation. We only knew him for about a year, but still we both felt really sad that he's gone. He always had a smile and a wave for us... a gardening tip... a little but of sports news to talk about... he was just an all around friendly guy. It's sad to think we won't see him anymore. What's even worse is he leaves behind 2 teenage kids and a wife. My heart just breaks for them. These kids won't have their dad at the high school graduation, he won't see them go to college, or get married. I don't know what I'd do if my father had died while I was in high school. Just surviving high school was bad enough!

I think one of the other really hard things to swallow was that we never really got to know him. We've owned this house since August of last year and we never once invited his family over for dinner! (Why didn't I invite him over when we had the chance??) The guilt was really hitting us hard last night. But I guess that's inevitable. The people who are left just keep thinking "what if" and look for ways to blame ourselves for the tragedy at hand.

I know there's nothing I could have done... but I just can't get past it. Am I letting time slip by us? Should we be doing more to live life to the fullest? Time just keeps ticking away while we move around in our own little routines, doing the same thing day in and day out. Maybe I should be contributing back to society more? Doing something to make the world better? Try to leave my footprint? If I died tomorrow... what would they say about me? What would Dave write in my eulogy? That I always had a beer in the fridge and the carpet was vacuumed once a week?