A pile of Des Moines Registers, New York Times and news magazines lay on the table. I found it hard to look at them for fear nothing had changed in my absence from the workaday world. You see, my family and I were able to escape to the woods of Minnesota for a number of days in July. Placing ourselves among the towering pines, birch trees and cool breezes coming off pristine waters taught us (again) the value of a simpler life and reminded us of what is important (and what is not) in life. I was afraid reading about the strife and bickering in the world would make me doubt the lessons and reminders I brought home from the Northwoods.
Before we had even unloaded our bags, we discovered two friends had left our neighborhood and took up residence in senior living facilities while we were gone. Betty Raife and Mary K. Riley had lived across the street from one another since before I was born. I imagine the Raifes and the Rileys were drawn to Harwood Drive for many of the same reasons we were;
mainly, this is a great place to raise a family. Their husbands passed away many years ago, but family and friends were often seen visiting them. Betty and Mary K.’s regular walks, beautiful yards and graciousness seemed as permanent and larger-than-life than the forest, waters and soaring trees we had admired during our trip. Their absence is going to leave a gaping hole in our neighborhood.
Our homes are now less than two blocks from I-235. The highway did not exist when the Raifes and Rileys arrived here. Roosevelt High School was there, of course, as was Hubbell Elementary, but students walked through a much larger neighborhood to reach school. Many of those homes were swallowed by the interstate and replaced by the cavern the highway now runs
through and the modern looking walking bridges students, joggers and strollers cross. As the world changed around them, Mary K., Betty and the Ingersoll Park neighborhood aged with grace. Mayors, Presidents, wars, civil unrest, good economies, bad economies, sadness, great joy and fashion trends have come and gone. The world looks much different than it did a half century ago, but the wide lanes and these wise women survived and, in my mind, became inextricably linked.
I avoided the stacks of news and walked into the other room. A few days ago, I sat in a kayak on a Minnesota lake watching an eagle fish in a hushed bay as a loon called in the distance and thought about how we are connected to all that surrounds us. What affects the eagle, the loon, the fish, and the vast region they all call home eventually will affect us. I might be able to avoid the newspapers, but the events recorded on their pages will, in time, reach me anyway.
I thought of healthier and happier times when Betty and Mary K. walked their dogs around the block looking at flowers and picking up pine cones. These gentlewomen’s friendliness, community work, gardening, their very neighborliness made our little corner of Des Moines, Iowa and the world better. They did not avoid the problems of the world. They faced them head on, lived and made a difference. They are still doing so today even though their addresses are different. They changed me and I will be forever linked (and grateful to be so) to them.
Linked. I will always miss our neighbors. The bags are put way until the next trip, but I no longer worry about losing sight of what I learned while gone. Like Betty and Mary K., I will try to remember the secret to life is living it with one’s eyes open. If I do what I can to make a difference and regularly stop to admire nature’s beauty, I will likely be able to look back on my days on Harwood Drive with the same fondness as do my two friends. I am linked to the world around me, both the good and the bad, and I am better for that. As for those papers, I got to many of them and look forward to those that will arrive tomorrow.
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