Loving your neighbor, I learned when we bought our house in Narrowsburg, is not about romance. In the city, neighbors are sometimes good, sometimes awful but rarely lovable. They are a fact. If they keep a messy apartment, their roaches infest your place. If their dog barks all day, you call the building manager and Pooch goes to day care. 

We had mostly fine neighbors in our coop in Tribeca, with one exception. After 40 years, we said goodbye to all of them and are still in touch with a few through social media.

When we came to Narrowsburg as weekenders, our neighbors across the way were Ed and Doreen Kraus and Dick Kuen. Dick was a senior who lived alone in a trailer. He was always pleasant to us and when we left on Sunday nights we would often bring him a plate of dinner. He made us feel good by accepting it. 

Ed and Doreen were the epitome of good neighbors. They kept their property spic and span, beyond reproach. Ed trimmed all his trees and hedges himself—some of the trees more than 30 feet tall. He painted his house himself by doing one side a year. It is white with a shade darker for trim. A few years ago, we saw a painter’s truck on their property. His family had finally talked him down from his ladder. He was pushing 80 then.

Doreen liked to recall when the neighborhood was thronged with children. Most of the families had a houseful; some had 10 or 12 to a family. They filled two school buses just in the Flats.

Their children were already grown when we moved in across the street with our two. We watched as the Krauses became grandparents, then great-grandparents. We all aged and before we knew it, we were grandparents too. 

When I ran for town board, Ed was my mentor. He recalled contentious times when his life was threatened for shedding light on an environmental issue that could affect property values. But he never backed down. “Don’t lose your soul,” he told me ominously when he agreed to vote for me.

For years, Ed walked to town every morning to meet friends at the cafe. He was determined to stay fit, which he did until heart problems interfered. Doreen kept her house so clean and tidy she could have invited royal guests to tea on a moment’s notice. Laundry was dried on the line outside, saving energy and making her linens smell fresh without additives. 

We didn’t socialize much, but when we invited them to a summer birthday for my husband, they came and sat together on the porch swing contentedly. Most evenings, they walked down to the bench in front of the Pecks’ house to watch the day end. As he walked with Doreen one evening last year, I asked how he was feeling. “I got old!” he said, amazed.

Ed died last spring, a victim of his heart. I wondered what Doreen would do. They once talked of moving to North Carolina. Instead, they bought Ed Kuen’s place next door, removed the trailer and expanded their pristine acreage. Now she was alone but her kids pitched in to keep the place as before. When I visited one afternoon recently to tell her about the trees we would plant in the park across the way, she told me she was going for more surgery soon. She was anxious about it, of course. At a board meeting one Monday morning, I learned Doreen had died, less than a year after Ed. As a good Catholic, I know she expected to be reunited with him. As a good neighbor, I know what it is to love your neighbor.