Joe and Rose

Yeah, two posts in one day, and the day I complain about people posting everything about their lives on facebook.
30 seconds after I posted the faxebook post, I see flashing lights in front of my house. Then behind that, a SUV with a coroner placard on it.
My next door neighbor Joe, was a union painter who just retired this year. In fact, I said to him just a few weeks ago, that I hoped he would be able to enjoy his retirement.
As neighbors go, he was as good as it gets.
Quiet, friendly, offer you the shirt off his back if you needed it, and would occasionally get my atention by yelling my name across the fence, just to give me surplus produce from his garden or smoked salmon from his fishing trips.
Apparently. Joe went out to his garden last evening, and died there.
Joe has a friend named Rose who would spend many days here with Joe, and Rose is as nice a person as Joe was.
Some (the usual suspects who have never loved, perhaps) questioned their friendship, but their closeness was evident. They loved each other.
I saw Rose a few moments ago, and she sobbed on my chest as she told how sorry she was that she didnt come here last night "so that he didnt have to lie there all night, alone..............."
She is heartbroken.
No other details matter.


Life is short.