I met Harold in the aftermath of a hurricane.  We were both fugitives, running from homes without heat or electricity into a neighbor’s home with both.  We were lucky enough to be invited to stay for some company and a meal.  Harold was warm and present in a way that made me instantly like him.  I met him with his wife, Bridget, whom he adored.  I met him surrounded by his friends, who smiled when he spoke.  I met him when I was brand new to a community that I’ve now lived in for 14 years.  Despite the decades between us, he was an instant friend.  Our friendship grew inside our unplanned meetings in the shops and on the sidewalks of our town.  Fortuitously running into each other was the way we got to know one another.  He was always a happy surprise.  A chat.  A hug.  A kiss on each cheek. 

The week we met, Hurricane Sandy charged up the East Coast and into our NJ coastline.  It was a mere three months after I moved with my husband, Mike, and 2-year-old twin daughters to NJ from NYC.  Trading an apartment for a house.  Parks for a yard.  Walking for rides in the car.  An eighteen-mile move, but wide.  The storm had downgraded from a Category 3 over Cuba to a Category 1 when it hit NJ, but those distinctions made little difference to us when the devastation presented itself.  Thankfully, being 18 miles inland shielded us from the worst of the flooding and damage felt along the Jersey Shore.  After a night of listening to our roof and shutters creak and crack in the gale-force wind, we awoke without electricity.  A minor inconvenience compared to most. 

That next day, welcomed into the home of a neighbor with a generator, we met wonderful people from our street and town.  Our daughters were whisked into the family room, where cozy couches and Disney movies awaited them.  It gave us enough comfort to begin really worrying about what we were going to do without power, heat, or a way to store or cook food.  With two toddlers.   

As we gratefully said our goodbyes, another neighbor and new friend, Denise, walked over to me and pressed a key gently into my palm.  “It’s a spare for our house next door.  We have a generator.  Please stay there until your power comes back on.  We have a place in the city that we are going to in the next day or two.”  Dumbfounded, I sputtered, “But you don’t even know us!”  And she shook her head as she glanced down at my toddlers and said, “It’s the right thing to do.”  I covered the coolness of the key with my fingers, not even sure we would use it, and gave her a hug.       

I had no way of knowing that Denise was one of Harold’s best friends.  And she would introduce him to us the following night.

When we arrived with pillows and bags filled with my daughters’ stuffed animals, the house was illuminated and full.  Denise and her husband William rushed up from their seats at the table to introduce our two little ones to the room.  We had unknowingly moved to a neighborhood that had grown and flown its own children.  Mike and I stood by and watched their patience and appreciation of small, curious people in a way that we, as young parents, had often forgotten.  In the swirl of friendly introductions, we met Harold and his wife, Bridget.

What I forget about the specifics of this first meeting is eclipsed by what I remember about how Harold and Bridget moved with each other.  In tandem and with ease, like a couple who respected and admired one another for many years.  They gave us their full attention and both seemed happy to know us.  I liked them immediately.

After taking seats at the table, we started getting to know our hosts, William and Denise.  It was hard to know if we were sitting down in the middle of a story or if it began for our benefit, but Denise and Bridget were suddenly telling the story of how they met.  In a NYC hospital, in a shared room after delivering their first babies.  Both girls.  Over two decades later, they remained not only in touch, but great friends.  A testament to how necessary location and timing are in the fabric of friendship and possibly why it becomes more and more difficult to find and make friends as we age.  They told the story together like they had rehearsed it for years.  I wondered if their daughters were also good friends, but it didn’t matter.  This friendship was a gift for both their families.

We later learned that Bridget worked at the town library and Harold ran the local farmer’s market.  The kind of people who epitomize the notion that small acts make big changes.

We enjoyed dinner in a relaxed way, we rarely got with our children, who were entertained in tandem around the table.  Each couple took turns sharing stories of their children growing up on the street.  We felt connected and happy that we had chosen well when it came to our house and town.

Although it seemed like a good idea to stay in a warm, well-lit place the next morning, any parent of toddlers will tell you that home is easier than other places.  So, while my husband began his commute and Denise and William headed into NYC, I walked down the street and back home with my daughters.  For the next 13 days, I would try and fail to work from home while entertaining my daughters.  Each evening, we would meet my husband at the train station, grab dinner in town, and then drive back to Denise and William’s house for warm showers and cozy beds.

I know those two weeks were incredibly challenging for me.  I felt discouraged, overwhelmed, and ill-equipped to parent most days.  But sitting here now, 14 years later, I don’t remember those feelings.  I can’t feel them again, even if I try.  But the kindness I felt in that time?  The closeness and community I felt in the middle of difficulty?  I can still feel that.  There are wonderful, incredible humans in this world.  Lucky us, several were our neighbors. 

Each of the people and places we learned about in those nights after the hurricane became people and places we sought out in the first year of our residence.  The big, white house down the block, the library, the farmers market.  Denise, William, Harold, Bridget.  Just being near them elicited positive feelings. 

Every Sunday, we stopped at the farmers’ market after church and began running into Harold with weekly regularity.  Whether he was setting out water for thirsty dogs or hugging an old friend or directing a patron to check out a nearby vendor, he would stop and smile and welcome us all with hugs and a kiss on each cheek.  He gave us his time and attention and friendship and always asked about any one of us who was absent.  He did this in the midst of running the farmers market with passion and love.  We never sensed that it overwhelmed him.

Harold became the friend we wanted to introduce to others.  If family was in town and we saw Harold, we would rush over, “Look.  Look! This is the type of person I know here.  This is my friend!” Thinking back now, I don’t know why we never exchanged numbers or planned to meet Harold on purpose.  But that’s what happens with people of different generations who have nothing obvious in common, isn’t it?  We stay, plateaued at a level of friendship that stays buoyed, light.  A chance meeting on the sidewalk.  A jog across the street to say hello. 

A couple of years later, my business moved out of my house and into an office in town, and I started seeing Harold in a coffee shop every morning during the work week.  Initially, a friendly wave turned into a brief stop and chat, which turned into introductions to the group of friends that he sat with each morning.  I met Rich, a 6’4” gentle giant and former NY harbor tugboat captain.  He sat next to Andy, a local dentist who was comfortable talking to and welcoming strangers.  Then there was Coach Mike, who led a local high school baseball team and spoke like he was between innings, with volume and bravado.

In warm weather, they would take over the sidewalk outside the coffee shop, and I’d smile as their hellos started a half a block away.  It was the best way to start my day.  I met many other friends around that table as the years passed.

When COVID hit, the time in my office came to an immediate end.  I barely returned except to pack it up, months later.  Without an office to go to, my daily coffee runs dried up.  Months and months later, I began to once again see the coffee crew around town.  It felt good to see my friends again.  Harold was as grateful as I was to be back in touch.  In these new months and years, he would hug us goodbye after catching up and tell us that he loved us.    

Then suddenly, or at least it seemed, Harold was sick.  I knew it before he told me.  In the minutes we said hello and asked about each other’s families, I hoped he wouldn’t confirm what I already knew.  But our small talk couldn’t drown out what his body was screaming.  He spoke about the disease and pain with courage and tears in his eyes.  He talked about beating the odds and how angry he was.  He sat, surrounded by friends in the same place I first started running into him every morning on the way to work.  So much had changed.      

Once Harold told me he was sick, I began stopping into the coffee shop more often, hoping to see him.  I did, once in a while, but doctor appointments and necessary care disrupted sleepy coffee shop mornings.  Then one day, I ran into Rich, the former tugboat captain, walking his dog, Sammy.  He shared that Harold had been in the hospital and was being released to spend the rest of his time at home with his family.  I asked Rich what I could do to help.  He answered instantly, smiling, “Send him a text!  He would love that.”  I realized that in nearly 14 years of calling Harold a friend, I didn’t have his cell phone number.  I didn’t even know his last name.  I added myself to Rich’s phone and showed him how to share Harold’s number with me.  As I handed him back his phone, I realized that I now had Rich’s name and information too.  I sent Harold a message of concern and love and friendship, and he replied very quickly with the same.  But it wouldn’t be long. 

I never sat shiva before.  I brought a cake.  Actually, I brought a cake and a box of cookies and then last-minute handed one to a couple of women walking in ahead of me, who I overheard whispering, “Were we supposed to bring something?”  “Here,” I said, handing a box to the woman closest to me. “I only brought these because a friend told us to bring food. So, please let me do the same for you.”  She took it, thanking me for the small kindness.  Small kindness was what Harold gave to all of us.  It made me miss him as I walked into his home for the first time.

Harold’s daughters felt familiar the moment I saw them, despite never meeting them or even seeing a photo.  They were the perfect combination of he and Bridget.  Since he spoke of them often, I felt like I got to know them alongside him all those years.  I never considered that this would be how we would eventually meet.  That we would have to introduce ourselves because no one knew us here.    

I realized all of this in the moment I said hello.  To Rose and then to Elizabeth.  His pride and joy and heart in two places.  Rose was Harold’s spirit and heart, and emotion.  Kinetic and open, she spoke to us with tears in her eyes and her heart on her sleeve.  She shared what all of us were feeling, which comforted the swell of visitors pouring into her mother’s home.  Elizabeth said hello easily and with strength.  Initiating the conversation.  Choreographing the morning with confidence and presence.  She understood the marathon was not yet over and kept the pace for all of us.  Then Bridget, whom we hadn’t seen for 14 years.  The same smile and warmth.  She remembered us genuinely with details of her own from that night so long ago.  She remembered our tiny daughters, now grown.  We stood in front of Harold’s family and told them how we knew their favorite man.  We told them things they surely knew better than us, needing them to know how much he meant to us, even though he meant so much more to them.  Then I relaxed, hearing how they wanted to do the same.  Share with us all that he was to them. 

Saying goodbye to Harold at the end of his life was a different meeting place for us.  His disease an unwelcome surprise.  I met the news in the same way I always met Harold.  On a sidewalk.  A chat.  A hug and tears on each cheek.  And now, instead of being surprised by his presence, I’m surprised by the knowing that I’ll never share it again.  That he won’t be in the shops and sidewalks of my town.  Possibly around the corner, but never again.  I will miss my friend.