Neighbors

My friend Pam is dying. She was told by her doctor last week that she has between two weeks and two months left.

Pam was diagnosed with a tumor at the base of her skull in June of 2009. At that time the tumor was thought to be benign and completely removable. But the biopsy after Pam's surgery revealed something else: a malignant, incurable cancer.

So the past two years have been a difficult challenge for Pam, to put it mildly. But she figured she had another year or two left, maybe more if she were lucky.

In late May Pam and her husband drove to the New Hampshire/ Vermont border to attend a large family gathering which was actually a memorial service for Pam's mother, who died last fall. Pam carried her mother's ashes with her, in a beautiful urn which Pam had kept on her mantel until now.

And here's where the title of this post comes into play...

While Pam and her husband were in New Hampshire, their neighbors got to work. Theirs is a lovely, small, historical neighborhood of colonial homes (and even a large former inn which has a dance hall on its third floor.)

The neighbors built for Pam a beautiful flower garden. And I'm not talking about a small flower patch. I'm talking about a large garden, perhaps 20'x 20', with pathways and birdbaths and various perennials and annuals. The flowers and plants are all nicely mulched with bark chips, and the pathways are lined with wood chips. A split rail fence encloses the garden.

One neighbor, Trish, came up with the idea of building this garden for Pam. She went door to door and enlisted the help of the other ten or twelve families in the neighborhood. It wasn't difficult for Trish to enlist help, because everyone thinks the world of Pam. A kinder, gentler, more respected and loved lady simply cannot be found.

So Pam and her husband returned home from their long weekend to find a beautifully designed flower garden at the end of their driveway.

When Pam's husband went to the gardening shop to pay for the split rail fencing, the owner refused to accept any payment. "I didn't do this because I wanted any money," he said.

But now Pam has been told she hasn't much time left. So she sits for a time each day in her garden, under the shade of a large tree, appreciating the moment and her neighbors and their kindness.

Playing tourists

Yesterday Ken and I decided to pretend we were tourists visiting Maine. It all started when I mentioned earlier in the week that I'd never seen Bug Light in South Portland. I've heard it mentioned a lot lately, with a newspaper photo of kites being flown there on the Fourth, a post by a Facebook friend that he'd spent a day at Bug Light, etc. It was time we saw it for ourselves. It's not as if it's a long drive for us to get to it, after all.

So we found Bug Light and were surprised to see the nice public park surrounding it. We walked the short distance to the light, then we read the many memorial stones placed in the walkway facing the city of Portland across the bay.

My sock went to Bug Light too, of course. I always take knitting along with me on rides.

After checking out little Bug Light, we drove a short distance through the campus of Southern Maine Community College to get to Spring Point Light. Although Ken attended SMCC many years ago, and Spring Point Light was, of course, there at the time, he confessed he'd never walked on the breakwater to get to the light.

The length of the breakwater is deceiving. It's almost a 1/4 mile walk out to the light, but it's fun to choose your path over the huge granite slabs that form the walkway.

After checking out Springpoint Light up close and personal, we then wandered over to the memorial built for those who worked on the Liberty Ships at the South Portland shipyard during WWII. The shipyard itself is long gone, so the memorial provides a tribute to those who worked there, among them Ken's father.

Our next stop was supposed to be Portland Head Light in Cape Elizabeth, but we could hear two lobster rolls calling our names at the Lobster Shack, so we drove past Fort Williams Park, where the Head light is located, to the lobster rolls. As usual there was a long waiting line to order our lunch, but the line moved quickly and we (Ken, the sock, and I) were soon seated at a picnic table overlooking Casco Bay, enjoying our lunch, listening to conversations all around us, and watching folks "from away" snap photos.

Now it was time to backtrack to Fort Williams Park and Portland Head Light. Blogger allows me only five photos per post, so I've put the photo of the Head lighthouse on my banner. It was a beautiful afternoon to be at the park, but then, every afternoon seems to be a beautiful one to be there. I never tire of the view of the lighthouse. This is the first year food vendors have been allowed to sell snacks inside the park, but Cape Elizabeth has set tight restrictions on how many can be there (three). I noticed one vendor selling hot dogs and another selling lobster rolls. I'm thinking a little yarn shop would be just the right addition to the park!

Fort Williams Park has several new walking trails and gardens near the lighthouse, so we wandered around a bit and checked out the views. We spotted two lobster traps in the rocks just off shore near a large mansion. I at first thought the traps had washed onto the rocks, but Ken inspected more closely and decided they were the private traps of a local resident. Probably someone at the mansion was planning a lobster dinner last evening....

We were back home by mid-afternoon, satisfied that we'd done a little coastal sightseeing this early in the summer. We've been known to crowd in a day playing tourists on Labor Day Weekend!