When I moved into the neighborhood years ago, I would see this man cooking on the grill, he would always say hi when I go walk my dogs and that would continue on for years. Anytime we would see each other we would wave hi, until the last few months, I didn’t see him or see his van move for work. About a month ago I saw his screen door hanging off the hinge of his place and I thought that was odd because I knew he was a handyman and he wouldn’t leave his screen door hanging like that.
One day I decided to walk to his place to see if he was alright until I saw a lockbox on his door and I knew that couldn’t be good sign.
About a week later I saw a sign for an estate sale pointing to his house, my heart sank because I knew the man who I saw for years had passed.
I decided to go the estate sale to see what he left behind, basically I was trying to find answers about this man. I couldn’t find much, he had old toy cars, he was constantly fixing his place, he loved Seinfeld because he had the entire series on dvd and this painting that someone made for him for his birthday. I asked the person who was running the estate sale what happened to the man that was living here and he said he doesn’t know so I asked him can I buy this painting and he said yeah sure.
I felt sad because I didn’t make an effort to get to know my neighbor or even know his first name. I don’t think he was married or had any family member still alive, I think I was more upset that he was alone when he passed.
Normally, I don’t write long blogs because I don’t articulate myself that well or theres a lot of run-on sentences but that’s OK. No pun intended but I had to paint a picture about this artwork and where I got it from.
Hopefully one day I can find the person that painted this picture for my neighbor and find out more about him.