Kingsbury Street, by Anonymous

I know a gentle man.
Allen is his name.
He smiles from his heart and has the kindest eyes I’ve ever seen.
“My shirt?” he might say. “You’re cold? Here. Take my undershirt, too. Don’t worry. I’ll be alright.”
This man has a wife, two sons, and a daughter. Together, they are “The Bergs.”
My family shared a cul-de-sac with The Bergs.
We would have shared a backyard, too, if it weren’t for that pesky brick wall.
I think my brother and I lost something over that wall almost every day. A tennis ball. A volleyball. A frisbee. But we didn’t worry. We knew our toys were just a doorbell and a smile away.

Block parties and barbecues were shared with The Bergs, too.
We even shared a preschool. And a carpool.
Allen’s wife, Danna, usually drove.
But at least once, when I was three-years-old, Allen drove.
I remember because I threw up in his car. All over the front seat.
He tried to comfort me, and tell me it was okay, and that he wasn’t mad that I had made his car dirty, but I cried anyway.
In the backseat, my brother and Allen’s son, Jeremy, were laughing and making barfy noises.
I was crying, and they were laughing.
That day, I decided I hated Jeremy.

I think I hated Jeremy for 24 hours.
I couldn’t hate him because I always liked him.
Whenever I saw him, my cheeks would get warm.
At the time, I didn’t know what that meant,
But now I know…Jeremy made me blush.

The oldest son, Matt, would play computer games with me on our 1980′s computer.
I always used to put the floppy discs in upside down,
But Matt taught me how to put them in the right way.

Tamara was the youngest, and the closest to me in age. But we never knew each other well.

When I was 11, The Bergs, my first “family-next-door,” left our little cul-de-sac.
A few years later, we left it, too.
The Bergs and The Brauns still saw each other for dinner, drinking, and movies. But it was always just the grownups. We kids were left at home.

Six years went by before I saw my family-next-door again.
Six years had stolen my childhood, and replaced it with teenage years,
But my memories of The Bergs remained the same.
They made me think of happiness, and warmth, and comfort, and love.

2001 brought a reunion. The Bergs invited us for Thanksgiving that year.
When I, now 17, walked through their front door, Allen and Danna hardly recognized me.
But they looked the same. And when I hugged them, they felt the same: Warm, comfortable, and loving.

They called Jeremy to come downstairs. I was prepared to see a freckle-faced 13-year-old; the same one who had occupied my memory.
But six years had passed. He was now a 19-year-old college boy.
A 19-year-old college boy who made my heart pound.
Before we exchanged a word, our faces broke into smiles that neither of us could hide.

Jeremy sat next to me at dinner, and as we talked, the world faded away.
We ate quickly and went upstairs, where we talked some more. We talked and talked until, “Kids!…..dessert!”
But I didn’t want dessert. I wanted more time with Jeremy.
“Kids…Come on!!”
But dessert, and parents, were calling.
So we walked downstairs, scarfed down some pie, and talked until the parents decided they had had enough of Thanksgiving.

I hugged my neighbors goodbye.
My first goodbye hug was for Jeremy. I can still feel his embrace. And I can still smell his cologne.
Danna was next. I thanked her for dinner.
Last, Allen. He gave me a big hug. And as I pulled away, those kind eyes spoke to me. They said,
“Randi, I’ve known you since you weighed 7 pound and 6 ounces. I watched you grow up. And I just watched my son fall for you. I would love nothing more than for you to be a part of our family one day.”
It was the nicest thing anyone had ever said to me. And he didn’t even say anything.

The next day, parents gossiped about the obvious romance that had sparked between their children the previous night.
I think they were already planning our wedding,
And hoping that one day, The Brauns and the Bergs would be legally bound forever.

But Jeremy was in college at NYU, and I was in LA. We had an entire country keeping us apart.
We tried to make something work, though.
We sent cards.
We sent emails.
He even sent me flowers.
Yellow roses for my 18th birthday, and pink roses for my graduation.
I will never forget that. Jeremy was the first boy who ever sent me flowers.

In March, I was accepted to NYU for college.
It all seemed perfect. Jeremy was the boy next door. The boy whose family knew me from the time I wore Huggies, and whose parents were so great that I sometimes secretly wished they were my parents.
Everything fell into place.
Everything except our hearts. Jeremy and I didn’t fall in love. I wanted so badly to live out the perfect scenario life had laid out for me, but it wouldn’t be. Jeremy and I wouldn’t be together. And The Bergs wouldn’t be my family.

We put our romantic past aside and vowed to remain friends,
But that only lasted so long. We slowly drifted apart.

Now it’s been five years since I last heard Jeremy’s voice. Five years since the last phone call; since the last email; since the last birthday wish.

But no matter what, we will always be connected. Perhaps our parents wanted to be connected through Jeremy and me, but Jeremy and I will always be connected through them, and through their decades-long friendship.
The Brauns and The Bergs are closer now than they were back in the old days.
The days when they shared a cul-de-sac on Kingsbury Street, and block-parties, and a pesky brick wall.

But last month, something changed.
Danna called.
“Allen’s coughing,” she said.
Nobody was worried until a week later,
When Allen couldn’t keep any of his food down.
Danna rushed him to the doctor’s office, where they performed an endoscopy. Allen was sedated, and the doctors guided a long tube with a camera at the end, down his throat.
Days later, they got the call about the results. They expected, “Esophageal upset” or “Stomach inflammation,”
But they were told,
“There’s a mass in his esophagus. It’s bigger than a golf ball. We took a biopsy. It’s cancer.”
Cancer. Allen had cancer.
Because of the mass, the doctors couldn’t get that long tube down into his stomach. They wanted Allen to have an MRI, just to make sure it hadn’t spread.
But it had spread.
“Two tumors in the stomach. The biggest we’ve ever seen.”
They wanted one more MRI. This time, his brain.
“There’s a spot in his brain, too. We are going to watch it, and just hope it doesn’t get bigger.”
Allen has cancer. In three places. And every tumor is inoperable.

I asked a friend, who has medical expertise, how much more time he thought my neighbor had.
“With chemotherapy,” he said, “Maybe a year. Without chemo, he might need a feeding tube right away. And he could be gone by summer.”

Allen. My neighbor—

The man with the kindest eyes I’ve ever seen;
The one who would give you the shirt off his back, and if you were still cold, would give you his undershirt, too;
The man who shared our cul-de-sac on Kingsbury Street,

And that stupid brick wall I wish we had torn down;
And the man who made sure our toys were safe,
And who tried to comfort me when I threw up in his car;
The man who’s oldest son showed me how to insert a floppy disc the right way, so it wouldn’t get stuck in the computer;
And whose youngest son made me blush, and gave me my very first bouquet of flowers;
The man who created the only “family-next-door,” I will ever know,
And the man who told me with his eyes that I was welcome into that family—

That man will pass away.

Now I think about Allen all the time.

And about how could be the last spring season he ever sees,
And that two days ago, he might have wished Jeremy a happy birthday for the very last time.
An d that his 92-year-old mother might lose a son,
And that his wife might lose her best friend,
And that his three children might lose their father.

And my neighbor might not know it, but I am already grieving for him.

And last night, I spoke to God, to whom I never speak,
And asked Him to ease my neighbor’s pain.
And even though God might not be happy with me,
Because I‘ve doubted His existence,
I just needed to ask Him,
On the off chance that He might forgive me,
If He’d mind making my neighbor’s last months peaceful.
And if He did hear me,
And He did forgive me,
Then I hope He hears me again tonight.
And tomorrow night.
And every night,
Until my neighbor passes away.