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DaRk AnGel : Why Home : January 2006 : Heaven and Hell...

Heaven and Hell...

My neighbors are heaven to the North of me and Hell to the South. The ones in the North shame me with the beauty of their garden, and the extents that they go to in order to have a comfortable and near perfect living area. The ones on the South are me, but 100 times worse.

Ok I know I am not supposed to be judgmental. It is ok when you judge someone good though, so why not bad? Tammy and whatever his name is to the South represent all I abhor in people. They are both collecting disability, yet cut yards on the sly for extra income. They are loud and obnoxious and backwards. Hillbilly rednecks is about the best I can do for them.

The first week they moved in I did introduce myself and try to be nice. Even when my other neighbors mentioned that they were having money problems, I went and purchased some trash from their yard sale that was more of a donation than a purchase. I have tried… Lord knows I have tried.

Maybe it is because Tammy intimidates me. She is about 5'6" and weighs in at least 350 lbs. Randy is over six foot but the same weight. When they fight everyone can hear it. They fight a lot. The wailing and yelling and screaming and wall pounding is like a broadcast of the ultimate fighting championship. No one is sure what goes on behind the tinfoil covered windows, but everyone is sure who is getting the worst of it.

After living there a month or so, there was a day when Randy was outside cutting the grass. I was in the den watching something, and through the window I saw what I am about to describe. First of all it was the first and only time I have seen him do anything. She usually does all the work. Anyways he is mowing with a push power mower. She walks out there and extends her finger into his face. I cannot hear what is going on but I am watched transformed. Her mouth is moving up and down as fast as her fingeris shaking and I can tell she is getting more and more agitated. Without warning she reaches down and grabs the front and back of the lawn mower and lifts it over her head and hurls it at her husband. He sidesteps and is missed, but a lesson is learned.. This is a woman to say yes ma'am and no ma'am to. I would never want for her to be mad at me!

The one thing they do that really sits wrong with me is their yard care. They have a yard with at least a dozen or so pine and oak trees. I have one oak tree. Yet with the wind when the leaves fall some come into my yard. No big deal. I go out and rake my leaves, their leaves and other neighbors leaves. Even with all the pain I suffer doing it, I do it. It is exercise that I desperately need. But Tammy, well first she gets a blower, and blows all the leaves into huge piles. Then she climbs on the riding mower and rides over the piles until the millions of big leaves are trillions of fragments. So what is the problem?

First they are higher up on the hill than I am. So first when she is trying to blow the leaves into a pile, some are blown against the fence that separates the two properties. They are never raked, never picked up, they are left to fall into my neatly raked yard. And when it does rain, those little fragments she leaves behind all end up in my yard for me to rake. It really pisses me off… But I have said nothing. I remember the lawn mower in the air.

So I do what I do with people I do not like. I avoid them. If there is any contact it is short and polite.
Yesterday Randy and another man came out into their yard. "Great", I thought. I was trying to count the birds as I do every Saturday, and they HAVE TO come out. Usually he drives his truck in the back yard and then turns on his stereo extremely loudly and then yells over it to talk to the company. I sat watching out of the corner of my eye, waiting to see what act of brilliance that was sure to occur. He and his guest went and got a flat ended shovel and go under a tree in the very back of their property and are trying to dig a hole. The type of shovel he has is used for scooping, not digging. And with the clay they are not having much luck.

I am chuckling to myself at the stupidity of what they are doing. I am enjoying their hardship. Serves them right coming out into their yard on my Saturday afternoon. I have the correct tools that would make their job so much easier, but these are people I do not like! So be it. Well so be it, until….

After about five minutes Tammy comes out carrying a cardboard box in her arms. Even from the distance I can see her face is red. Something is wrong here. As she nears the spot, I see something I never have before. Her husband comes over to her and comforts her. Both reaching over their bellies hugging as best as they can. I can see she is crying. They are digging a grave - or trying to. I am struck with the tenderness I am seeing.

I put my camera down, shamed by the person I claim to be. I walk to my shop and get two shovels and a pick and a wrecking bar. I walk to the fence and hand them over the top. I see her sorrow. I can feel it. I find out that their ferret died. I never knew they even had an animal. I do know that my offering is appreciated. Randy, says "thank you bud", as I walk away.

I get back to the patio and I watch the remainder of the dig. Tammy gently places the cardboard box in the hole. For a second all three people stand silently around the hole in the ground. No one says a thing. What do you say at death? Tammy turns and shrugs her shoulders in response to something her husband says and walks back into the house. The two men fill in the hole and then place my tools on my side of the fence as I asked them to. Silently they go back into the house..

I know that silence.

And I am ashamed that I forgot that these two were people with feelings. Regardless of how they live, of what they believe, of their backgrounds, or of their culture, they are people that feel and love.

They do the best that they can with what they have, as we all do. I needed yesterday to remind me of exactly who I do not want to be. The moment of him comforting her was poignant for many reasons. It showed he cared for her. It showed that regardless of how different they are from me, they can hurt just like anyone does when a loss occurs. I do not want to be judgmental and I do want to be more emphatic. I admit to having problems with putting myself in others shoes. It is something I work on, and must work harder on. In fact this is something that only recently did I see when I looked in my mirror.

Love is so very strange. People do love differently. I do know for a fact that these two people can never love as deeply or as intensely as I can. In fact I wonder if anyone can. But the fact is that they found each other, they are what each other needs, and even with the drama, they remain together, dedicated and committed. And the simple fact is that is something I do not have.

After a while as I sat there, I began to think of what might occur this year. Chances are Destiny and/or Jezebel and/or my father are going to die. They are old. And when that time comes, there will be no one there to console or comfort me. Sure my friends will try, but friends cannot provide the level of comfort that a loved ones caress can.

I am glad that Tammy has her husband. I am glad for everyone that has found their other. The fact is that I am jealous and envious. Why not me I wonder? Am I that strange? Is it the isolation? Is it that I am so different? Am I totally a loser and cannot see it? Why not me? Or why me?

No pity or self loathing here.. Just facts...

Today as I counted the birds, Tammy came out and went back to the grave and spent a few moments silently there. Death is such a horrible intrusion to our lives.

I am glad that I did the right thing in the end. I saw their humanity and offered mine, in a few words and some tools leant. I know I did nothing to ease their suffering, but I saw the frailty that I too often miss seeing. Theirs and mine and of life and love.