You greeted me so graciously when I moved into the building. I asked how long you’d been living here and you replied, ”Longer than you’ve been alive, Honey!” We both doubled over with laughter.
“I’m eighty-one years old, can you believe that?!”
When we saw one another coming and going, there was always great affection and delight. “Oh it’s so good to see you!” “Oh isn’t that funny seeing you again!”
Some of my strongest memory from the pandemic is sitting outside of our building together. We were on the same wavelength, a rarity under the circumstances. We would confess our fear and also find levity together. While watching some women run inside for the curfew, you protested, “I’m not following any curfew, the sun hasn’t even set yet!” (We stayed three feet from our building’s door, however.)
We didn’t exchange phone numbers nor did we ever knock on one another’s doors. “I think about you often but I respect people’s privacy.” We might drop off a little something or message here and there. I once dropped off some Christmas tree chop from the park and you dropped off a wax-sealed note of thanks. Stamped with “V.” I told our neighbors that you are a living icon and deserved some special treatment on your last birthday. They left cards, flowers and baked goods. “Oh Vincent? Of course!”
A retired stylist with a closet full of high fashion suits, you would tell me “try to dress decently just one day a week.” And to wear “just a little lipstick and tiny bit of blush.” Only from you could I receive such tips with fondness. The two days a year I get dolled up, I’d always just happen to run into you. “Oh wow, you look fabulous!,” you exclaimed with significance.
I didn’t know just how much our chit chats meant to me until they were in jeopardy. I found myself grasping for more stories, more insight, more wit. More intrigue, more serendipity, more time.
In the ambulance, I held your hand and you said, “I feel your strength, don’t let anyone take it for granted.”
The day before you died, you asked me to take out the rest of the air in the helium “I love you” balloon at your hospital bedside. You said that the balloon was a bit depressing because it was now only half inflated. I inhaled the rest of the helium and squealed “Vincent, it’s time to get serious!” The gleaming luminosity in your laughing eyes was surely earned.
When I returned home, waiting for me in our building’s vestibule and just outside your apartment’s door, there was an “I love you” balloon that my brother sent me for my birthday.