Goodbye Ted.

We are back from vacation and I have lots of pictures to share. First though I really wanted to put up this post. While on vacation we received the sad news that our former neighbor Ted Trudeau passed away. I wanted to take a moment to tell you a little about him and pay him a tribute. When we moved into the house in 1998 Ted and his wife Claire were in their early 80s. Claire passed away a few years ago, and Ted called me himself on that day to tell me, I was touched that he called. Claire was mostly housebound for the entire time we lived here but Ted was quite active up until the last few years. During our first winter here we noticed that after a snowstorm someone would go out and blow the end of our driveway before we got out there. We realized pretty quickly that it was Ted who was beating us out there. After a while I would harass Marc to get out there before Ted could get to it first.

Ted had a wonderful garden for many years, it took up one third of his backyard, and he was always generously sharing the harvest with us. For awhile after Marc mowed he would come inside and find a message from Claire telling us that Ted had left a bag full of garden offerings on the fence. We used to joke that they were rewarding us for mowing the lawn- but really I think it was just that they knew someone was home.

After Jessica was born, I received a $10 bill and a nice note from Claire- it said, "Lucky you! I had four boys! Buy her something cute." Once the kids were old enough Ted was always a big draw. As soon as he walked into his backyards the kids would yell, "TED!" and go running to the fence. His hearing was never very good but he always gave it a good try to talk to the kids. In the picture below you can see a little of his garden on the right.


Many a conversation was had by this fence over the years- what do they say? Good fences make good neighbors?
Then there was the time that Claire called me and asked me to come over with my camera. She said she wanted a picture of Ted and they don't have a camera anymore but figured with little children I would. So Jessica and I walked over and this is what we saw...

It seems Ted had fallen off a ladder and gotten a black eye. The thing is that Claire couldn't stop laughing- she thought it was the funniest thing.

Ted had this big tree in his front yard and every year it changed color and lost its leaves before any other tree on the street. That meant that we were able to play in his leaves before it got wet and cold. We loved Ted's leaves. Most of my favorite fall pictures were taken under his tree.


Many times when they saw us outside they would come out and sit on the porch to watch the kids. That is Claire on the left and her best friend Prima.

Here Claire and Prima had just pulled into the driveway while we were playing in their leaf pile.
One of my favorite memories is the time that Ted came out to play with us under the tree.


In addition to his huge garden Ted has some wonderful blueberry bushes. He would always invited the kids over the fence to pick the berries. They loved picking the berries- not so much eating them.


Ted lived in his house independently until early June. At which point his family moved him to an assisted living facility nearer to one of his sons. Justin and I went over to say goodbye the day he left. It was clear that he was not the same person he had been for all those years. Justin kept asking when Ted was going to come back and finally one of Ted's sons confirmed for Justin that he was never coming back. I looked down at Justin and I saw that realization hit him and his whole face changed and his eyes got all teared up. He looked at us and wiped his eyes and said, "I don't want him to go. I will miss him." We barely got back to our house before Justin started sobbing.

I don't think I was as good of a neighbor to Ted through the years as I would have liked. I wish I had made more of an effort, especially in the last few years, to look after him. I do know that I enjoyed having him as a neighbor. When our house didn't sell last year, one of the things that made me okay with it was knowing that we weren't leaving before Ted. I hated the idea of leaving him behind, with new people that wouldn't know about the active and friendly person he used to be.

His final neighborly gift is allowing us to live in his home right now, although I am pretty sure he didn't know we moved in to his home. Here is the link to his obituary. They are not doing services until October. I am afraid the delay is because we are occupying his home right now and they want to hold the services at a time when his sons can all come to the house and finish cleaning it out- since they live all over the country. I am feeling bad about that but not much we can do now.

Goodbye Ted, you were a wonderful neighbor and you will be missed very much.