SOME OLD NEIGHBOURS DIE, OTHERS SIMPLY FADE AWAY...

Art by BERNIE WRIGHTSON, copyright DC COMICS

A few doors along from me used to live a woman whose name (for the purpose of this tale) was Mrs. SMITH.  Mrs. Smith and her three daughters were living there when my family moved into the area in 1972 and had presumably lived there for a good number of years before we had ever thought to do so.  In the fullness of time, her daughters married and moved out and Mrs. Smith lived in the house by herself.

About fifteen years ago, I would occasionally see Mrs. Smith's teenage granddaughter visiting her, but her health had started to fail so I never saw much of Mrs. Smith herself, apart from the very odd occasion when she was sweeping her front porch.  Then, around six years back, I noticed that the now adult granddaughter and her boyfriend seemed to be visiting Mrs. Smith quite a lot, if their frequent comings and goings were anything to go by.

And then one day the proverbial penny dropped.  Mrs. Smith's granddaughter and boyfriend weren't visiting, but actually living there, Mrs. Smith having moved out of the house and in with another of her daughters some months before without me having noticed.  And so it had come to pass that another long-time familiar face had disappeared from my everyday life without me ever getting to bid her a last goodbye.  (Not that she'd be concerned with that.)

I've no idea if Mrs. Smith is still alive or not, but I wouldn't be at all surprised to find that she expired a few years back, so frail had she become.  In the caverns of my mind are many people who were once everyday participants in my day-to-day life who I haven't seen in years, and, like Mrs. Smith, I have no idea whether they yet inhabit this mortal plane or left for parts unknown a good while ago.  Alive, dead, flitted, emigrated?  Who knows?

(UPDATE: I later learned that 'Mrs. Smith' passed away on Friday, November 1st, 2013 - twelve days after I posted this.)

What strikes me as odd is that it can be many months, sometimes even years, before we realise that we haven't seen 'so and so' for ages, and that part of the backdrop of our lives has been altered by their absence.  I often think of folk who once perambulated past my window on a daily basis that I haven't seen in years, and wonder where they are and (if alive) what they're doing now.  (Just where is the guy with the ill-fitting toupee, who my teenage self used to see making his way to and from the local pub every night?  He must've been one helluva fighter to stop his drinking buddies continually ripping the p*ss out of him, that's for sure.)

I remember sitting in a cafe in Southsea one day, back around 1985, and noticing an elderly gentleman with a pale film over one eye and a distinctly Karloffian-type face (as BERNIE WRIGHTSON would draw it), dressed in 1950s style clothes under a black overcoat. I only ever saw him once, maybe twice, but every now and again, my mind jumps backwards and I wonder what became of him, simply because I associate him with Southsea and have fond memories of my time living there, nearly thirty years ago.  

When I'm gone, I wonder if anyone will one day ever wonder what happened to the guy with his German Shepherd dog, who faithfully traversed the neighbourhood in all weathers, and, without ever having known me, sort of miss me in the same way that they miss their childhood - simply because I was once a familiar (from afar), everyday part of it.

It would be nice to think so, but somehow I doubt it.