My neighbor of 52 years passed this morning. He was the original owner of that house since it was built in 1962. He had been in the hospital for the last 3 weeks and had one of his legs amputated. Turns out he had a liver full of cancer and after a shot of morphine this morning it was all she wrote. I was 6 about to turn 7 when we moved into this house. His father was alive and living with him at the time. He was our local milk man. I'm sure some of you probably are of an age when milk used to be delivered to your house to an insulated galvanized box on your stoop.
His wife passed 10 years earlier. I made a point of stopping to see him when I was out walking and i saw him outside having a cigarette. We shoot the breeze about the Bruins, the Red Sox, the Patriots and the Celtics. We'd ponder what were those crazy neighbors across the street up to with all the vehicles and what not. 45 years ago, when our house was uninhabitable for a month and a half due to repairs they let us stay with them. We'd help each other out with the snowblowing in winter.
He will be missed. He had cool stories about old time Nashua. None of the kids are taking the house, which is not in the best of repairs, it's going to be sold as is. So ends a chapter that has gone on so long it seemed as if it would always be that way. I've never known another neighbor in that house. I visited him at the hospital on Sunday and saw how frail he looked. He recognized me and was glad to see me. I'm glad I got to see him one last time. I didn't think he'd be coming back to the house and thought he'd end up in a nursing home if his biopsy didn't indicate otherwise. I guess he never even made it to that point, so it was probably a small mercy that he passed without pain. He had hoped he would pass at home like his father did.