How the Kids Down the Street Keep Me Young at Heart

One afternoon a few weeks ago, my doorbell rang. I peered out the half-moon window at the top of my door but didn’t see anyone. It was only when I stood on my tiptoes and looked downward that I saw my visitors, Nico and Ella, the 7-year-old twins from across the street, their mom in tow. Looking like characters from a Norman Rockwell painting, the twins held in their tiny hands a cardboard case filled with chocolate candy bars. It was fundraising time at their school. I quickly invited them in.

Nico and Ella were born about a month after their parents moved in, the first children in my neighborhood in 25 years. Watching from my deck, I saw them grow from being carried in their car seats, to taking their first steps, to slowly meandering up the hill to nursery school every morning, returning clutching their latest piece of artwork.

Over time they began to recognize me. I went from being the bearded stranger to be avoided at all costs to the nice old man in the yellow house who invites them in to play with his cat.

Slightly up the street live two princesses, Mia, 8 ½, and Gianna, 7. Friendly and verbal, they always greet me with a big hello. I usually ask about school, their weekend plans or if either of them is married yet.

Often I’ll pass by their house and see a hopscotch court drawn in chalk on the sidewalk, or flowers in bright pastels bedazzling their front steps. I stop, look and smile, sometimes even tearing up, lost in memories of my own daughter when she was their age.

While I was recovering from heart surgery last year, homemade get-well cards arrived from both girls. I still have them.

In contrast to many older Americans, I love having kids in the neighborhood, the joyful innocence they exude, the continuation of life they represent. They are a reminder to me of my own mortality and my obligation to help the next generation succeed, if only through example and generosity of spirit.

When my daughter was born, she was the only child in a neighborhood consisting of four couples over the age of 60. Fortunately, they all embraced her, becoming eight wonderful auxiliary grandparents.

I have many friends who have moved to adult communities partially to escape the chaos of kids. Their children grown, they now want some peace and quiet in their lives. That is their right. They’ve earned it. I understand and respect it.

But it’s not for me.

I choose to remain an active participant in the circle of life, taking delight in its newest members — despite some of the annoyances and inconveniences they may bring — and to pay forward some of the love and enrichment my older neighbors brought into my daughter’s life.

I figure once I’m gone, I’ll have all of eternity to lie in quietness.

My hope is as Nico and Ella and Mia and Gianna grow older, they will remember me fondly as that friendly guy who lived across the street — rather than the character David Letterman used to occasionally invoke, the grouchy old neighbor who’s constantly sticking his head out the window and barking, “You kids get outta my yard!”