Goodbye, Mr. Goosens!

When we saw the funeral notice with the name Christoph Goosens in the building lobby we did not quite know what to expect. It was in Dutch, a language we are not too familiar with. Only the previous day I had spoken to him; we had greeted each other and he had grinned his toothless smile.  He always held the door for me, a person of unfailing courtesy. His wife/partner had been put in a psychiatric ward of the Old People's Home a few months ago. The mind picks up pieces of information and makes random connections. I told my husband that the notice probably was about his wife passing away. 'Innige deelneming' - is what you say in Dutch to express condolence. I was wondering what I would actually say when I met him.

We realised our mistake when another neighbour informed us that it was the man himself who had passed away in his sleep Monday night. His partner, he corrected our assumption, had died 3 months ago. They rented the ground-floor apartment. Mr. Goosens did not have any biological children and they had adopted a foster child. He said the son hardly visited the father and was also not straight. This I felt, was not a very necessary revelation, inspite of  the Belgian propensity for gossip.

We were not planning to attend the service. Besides the odd exchange in the lobby, or the couple gushing over my babies, we hardly interacted. A couple of times I had rung their bell to inform them that they had left their keys on their door. And I knew they were too old to cook; had opted for food to be delivered everyday. If it was left lying out too long, the closed lobby area would be full of cooked food smell.

Mr. Goosens drove an emerald green Mazda. He was a retired car dealer. We did not even realize his partner was put into a home. Again, we came to know of it courtesy our well-informed neighbour. The food delivery had become  infrequent, come to think of it. Sometimes I used to spot his car outside the Old People's Home. I pass that way on all school days.

I wonder what I would have done differently had I known that on Tuesday morning Mr. Goosens would be no more. Why  am I thinking so much over the death of a neighbour I barely spoke too? Why would I care that there would be no one to water his plants anymore? That sometimes he would open the door as I was stepping out and we would nod at each other? In the five odd years I have lived here I never gave it any significance or second thought. And that is what hit me - the finality of death, the suddenness. Not another chance, nothing, a gap, a memory.

This is when I think of my (mostly private) conflicts with the people in my life - anger with a cousin not responding to mails, agitation with a friend who is too busy to talk to me, and I'm feeling ignored, general frustrations which make me irritable with  my own husband and children. And I think would I be this way if I know tomorrow is a finality that I can't reverse - never mind which side I am on! And I want to live, breathe deeply, savor the now, and be more forgiving and open than I tend to be. Smile more, and be remembered with a smile too.