Let’s Make The Most of This Beautiful Day

Rogelio, the sweet patriarch of the multi-generational Filipino family who live next door to us, was the first person I met when we moved into our house nearly five years ago. I was the first one to the house on moving day and when I stepped out of my Bug, there was Rogelio, standing on the sidewalk, smiling his shy, sideways smile. When he saw me, it felt like he really saw me; he said, “Oh, good…oh good. Welcome.” Those smiles, and his quiet kindness, have been our neighbors ever since.
 
The last time we saw Rogelio was a month ago. It was the middle of the night and he was being carried up his side yard on a soft stretcher by four firemen/EMTs. He was unresponsive, on oxygen, and looked even tinier of stature than he already was. He’d had a heart attack. He lingered in a coma for a few weeks and died peacefully last week. We were stunned. He was relatively young, still working long days, and we’d seen him just days before down at our neighborhood bus stop. We didn’t know then, of course, that that was the last time we’d get to enjoy his gentle teasing and twinkly eyes.
 
Rogelio and his beloved wife of over forty years had big plans to return to the Philippines next year when they retired. Their extended family and friends there, who called Rogelio “Papa”, were all eagerly awaiting their return. That’s often how life goes, it seems. We make plans, things change, and people are gone before we know it, with no chance to prepare or say goodbye. ​I’m the girl who mourns when favorite restaurants close without warning, so when it’s someone I care about, well, you can imagine. Losing people unexpectedly is the reminder that seems to repeat itself in its importance: let us do and say what we want to now rather than later, let us tackle those things unattended or unaddressed, and, in the bigger picture, let us live life to its glorious max, giving thanks for it all. 
 
Farewell, dear Rogelio.  I trust you’re having a neighborly day in the most beautywood of all. 
 
Won’t You be My Neighbor
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It's a beautiful day in this neighborhood
A beautiful day for a neighbor
Would you be mine?
Could you be mine?

It's a neighborly day in this beautywood
A neighborly day for a beauty
Would you be mine?
Could you be mine?

I have always wanted to have a neighbor just like you
I've always wanted to live in a neighborhood with you

So let's make the most of this beautiful day
Since we're together, we might as well say
Would you be mine?
Could you be mine?
Won't you be my neighbor?

Won't you please
Won't you please
Please won't you be my neighbor?
 
-Fred Rogers

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