Today Shannon and I had the privilege of attending the funeral for our longtime neighbor, Mary Erickson, who died last Saturday at age 95.
As her obituary shows, Mary was a wonderful person, someone who exuded calm and quiet happiness. She was a devout Christian, and the sermon at her funeral made clear that she lived her faith in an exemplary way. We experienced that in her exceptional generosity. She stopped over frequently to drop off books for Shannon (though fortysomething stay-at-home moms don’t necessarily enjoy all the same books as octogenarian widows!), magazines for me (she loved National Geographic and knew I did too), and many gifts for the girls, from birthday and Christmas presents to random things she thought they’d enjoy – dolls, books, even an entire toy house that they indeed loved.
She was also an amazingly active and tough old woman. Well into her eighties, she was still gardening, filling bird feeders, and retrieving her own garbage bins. I fondly recall how she was a bit embarrassed when I or another neighbor would shovel her sidewalk. And even past 90, she’d come out to her driveway to watch the girls shoot baskets, clapping when they made an especially good shot.
After hearing that she’d died, I realized that Mary was our neighbor for longer than any other neighbor I’ve ever had – eight years. We’ll remember her beautiful kindness for much longer than that.