A heartwarming tale of an unexpected friendship between a younger person and an 85-year-old neighbour.
We chatter in scraps of conversation as we enter and exit our building at similar times. Sometimes our chats find us meeting up in cafes or outside each other’s doors, often lingering until we finish a thought. She isn’t young, and yet she remains outspoken, passionate, and alive to the world in ways that many aren’t.
Her friendships have mostly been with people of a similar age, but that all changed when my 85-year-old neighbour left a CD in my letterbox after hearing drumming wildly in our garage. She wrapped the CD in a note written in her finest hand, explaining that she thought I might enjoy the sounds of her friend’s band, The Necks. Others in our street had understandably complained about the endless noise because the sound reverberated through their walls, creeping into their quiet spaces, and ruining their days. But my neighbour did not. She delighted in it, sometimes standing outside our garage door and listening to me bash away at a song like it was her private concert. She walked the streets most days with her rescued greyhound who tottered along in fine leather booties to protect the pads under his feet. Back then, we were living at opposite ends of the same street. Her in an apartment in a converted underwear factory and me in a rented townhouse. When the townhouse sold, my kids and I moved by chance into an apartment three doors down in the same factory and now, instead of sharing a street, we share a hallway. She was the first person I befriended in the building. She’s not from here. She’s a blow-in from the United States via a number of countries along the way. She has lived everywhere, from Thailand to Ghana, Japan to the New South Wales South Coast, gathering friends with each new address
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