Eulogy for an Unknown Neighbor

One morning late in the summer, I decided to take a walk around my neighborhood.  I headed down the cul de sac toward the road that wraps around the lake.  And I decided to turn left instead of right.  I don't know why I turned left, other than I just decided that I would go in the opposite direction from the way I usually go.  I would go counter-clockwise that day, rather than my usual clockwise.

It was a beautiful morning, with the sun shining on leaves still moist from a heavy rain the night before.  Flowers were flush with color, birds were singing, the air was luminous.  I remembered that I had forgotten my cellphone, but reassured myself that it was not worth turning back.  One time around the lake, what would I need a cellphone for?  Maybe that was when I felt the sense of unease, but then I started up the first small hill and heard screaming.  Listening closer, I decided that it did not sound like a scream of someone in physical pain, but something else.  I thought to myself, "that is one frustrated, angry child."  It went on for a few minutes and then stopped.  I got to the top of the hill, rounded the corner, and noticed a man walking toward me on the other side of the street, walking his dog.  I nodded to him, an understated greeting, an acknowledgement with no commitment.  He nodded back.

I had just passed a house to my right when a woman ran out of the door, screaming hysterically,  "Help me, please help me!  Please, for the love of God help me."  I could see my own initial indecision mirrored on the face of the man.  Was she crazy?  Was this really an emergency?  Should I get involved, or follow what seemed to be the modus operandi in this neighborhood to which I had moved just a year before - mind my own business like everyone around me seemed to be doing?

The woman kept screaming, running toward the street.  The man and I turned at the same time, and ran toward her.  "Around back," she screamed, "she's stuck - I can't get her out.  Oh my God, why did she do that?  Why didn't she wait for me?  It's only water!"  She went on and on, hysterical, out of control.  The man ran around the side of the house and I stood with the woman, listening to her, not knowing what to do.  "Oh God, oh God…" she continued screaming.  I went around the house to see how I could help.  What I saw was so incongruous I felt as if I had entered an alternate reality.  The man was kneeling on the ground beside the house next to a basement window well.  A leg was sticking up out of the well.  A large woman's leg, from the calf down, shoeless.  The man was leaning over the well, with one arm deep in the well.  I did not look in the well.  I did not see the rest of the woman, but he seemed to be holding one of her hands.  "I can't get her out," he said.  "She's too heavy.  Her head was in the water.  I could pull her head above the water, but she's not breathing.  I think she's dead."

No, I thought, that can't be.  That can't happen, just like that.  Falling into a window well on a sunny morning and drowning?  That doesn't happen.  The screaming woman was standing in the doorway beside the window well now, continuing her hysterical cries.  "Did you call 911?" I asked her.  No coherent answer.  "Did you call 911?"  I could not register her response.  "I don't have a cellphone," I told the man.  "I didn't bring a cellphone."  He fished in his pocket with his free hand, pulled out a cellphone and handed it to me.  I could not figure out how to use it at first, my hands were shaking and it was different from my own.  He watched me in frustration and alarm until I finally found the keypad and dialed 911.   "Where are you?," answered the 911 operator.   I ran back to the front to get the number of the house.  "Stay on the line," she said.  "Do not hang up the phone."  I stayed in front to hail the police.

The screaming woman came back to the front of the house.  "She called me," she cried.  "She found water in the basement and asked me to come over.  Why didn't I pick up?  Oh, why didn't I pick up right away?  It was only water!  Why did she do that?  Why didn't she wait for me?  Why?  Why?  Why?"  Oh God, I thought.  What can I do to fix this?  Something so stupid.  I tried to put my arms around the woman, to calm her down.  She shook and continued to scream and cry.  The police came first.  First one car, then two, then five.  Then the ambulances.  The first ambulance crew jumped out and I pointed them to the side of the house.  Almost immediately one of them came back to the front on his cellphone, calling for backup.  Another ambulance arrived.  It took four strong men to get the woman out of the well.

A police woman had taken my place with the screaming woman, trying to calm her down, trying to get the story.  I stood to the side, unsure of what to do.  The man with the dog came back to the front of the house.  "She had no pulse," he said.  "I think she was already dead when we got here."  He shook his head in disbelief.  "What a way to die."  The ambulance crew came around the side of the house with the woman on a gurney.  There was a breathing machine over her face, and a mechanical pump on her chest.  "She was still warm," said one of the medics.  "Maybe there's a chance we can save her."

I went back to the police woman to see if she would stay with the screaming woman until someone came to be with her.  "Don't worry," she said.  "We are not going to leave her alone.  Thank you for your help."

That's it, I thought?  Now I just walk away and continue my walk, and my day?  I started back around the lake, stopped and turned around.  I just could not walk around the lake anymore.  I headed back, walking clockwise, back toward the tragic house.  The man with the dog was talking to the neighbor across the street, who had come out to retrieve his newspaper.  "That's the woman who just lost her husband, not long ago," said the neighbor across the street.  "I'm sure that's the daughter who just lost her father, and now her mother…"  He shook his head and went back into his house.

I reached down and began to pat the dog, who was sitting quietly beside his owner.  "His name is Baxter," said the  man.
"I can't believe how calm he's been through all of this," I said.
"He's a good dog," said the man, "a good companion."
I told the man about my father's new dog, what a good companion he is too.  And then I said, "My name is Judy.  We live on the other side of the hill.  We just moved here last year, and we don't know many people yet."  And the man said, "My name is John.  We've lived here for over twenty years, and we don't really know anyone around here either."

Later, I found the woman's name in our community directory, and I found her obituary online.  I say a prayer, every time I pass the house.  And when I go for a walk in the neighborhood, I always turn right.  And I always look for John and Baxter.