After the estate sale came the dumpster, and after the dumpster came a lone random photo, dropped in weeds, “Frame $2–.” It was the last artifact of my neighbor Louise, 84 and gone to a care place where she told me, “I hope I’ll be OK.” She’d been born in that house, and when her parents died, she inherited it and moved back. Her husband had died in the house 25 years ago, and so had her divorced son Gary in 2020, gone from prostate cancer. We watch the ambulance take him away at night, though scared in pre-vaccine quarantine, we weren’t sure who was on the gurney.

When we moved to Denver twenty years ago, Lou was the one who organized block parties. Becky and I have now lived third longest on the block, of the dozen houses here. We no longer have block parties, but we do have kids playing basketball and neighbors across the street with boisterous backyard cookouts, enviously festive.

Three weeks ago, I sat on Lou’s porch, and she remembered as a young girl who lived in every small brick bungalow, every name Italian. She’d gone to St. Catherine of Sienna’s, and all her friends went to the Catholic school, but she went to Denver North, the local public, because they had a good music program. On Saturday she’d join friends for matinees, staked for a quarter at the Federal Theater (just three blocks) or the Egyptian Theatre on 32nd, or the Oriental Theatre farther on 44th. 

She told me she had to move because she’d made a mistake years ago and taken out a reverse mortgage, and the money was running out, and her daughters said she had to move. The story didn’t make sense, but she was crying, and I saw no purpose asking. “You’ll make new friends in Arvada,” I said. “I’ll come visit.”

Years ago, my father told me, “When your mother is gone and I’ve had enough, I’ll go down to the river bottoms someday, and I won’t come out.” I was horrified, but I understood Dad, and his hard-won perspective on life. For me it would be the Raggeds Wildnerness, up Dark Canyon Trail to the Anthracite Trail, on trails deeper and north. You needn’t follow.