Rick

Rick knew everyone on the street, but no one really knew Rick.

Part Buddha, part busybody. Retired, observant, curious. He inserted himself into the affairs of his neighbors but remained mysteriously aloof.

When I worked on a giant stone labyrinth in Tennessee for six weeks, I brought back a few small rocks for him. Tiny pieces of the Smoky Mountains. A small gift, a way to connect. A way to bring something of the larger world to my seventy-something-year-old neighbor at the end of the block.

Rick didn’t drive. He walked into town most days for groceries, a croissant, and to make his slow rounds through his neighbors’ gardens. Up and down the street, he knew what was blooming and what had withered , often before the gardeners themselves. On warm days, he sat on a weathered wooden bench by his front door, sipping tea. If it was too hot or too cold to be on his perch, the music inside his little house drifted out to the sidewalk. Could be 60’s rock. Could be Mozart. He didn’t watch TV. He didn’t have a smartphone.

He lived a very local life.

When I spent five weeks working in Wyoming, I brought him back a few chunks of fossil-filled limestone. Sea creatures pressed into stone by an ancient sea. Rick placed them next to the Tennessee rocks in an artful little arrangement in his garden. A simple gift, with an ulterior motive. I wasn’t just being neighborly, I was trying to give something I thought Rick didn’t have: connection to the bigger world.

In the aftermath of Rick’s death last month, mourning with neighbors and listening to stories at his memorial service, I realized I’d had it all wrong.

Rick didn’t need my trinkets to connect with the world. He lived a full, rich life right here on McLellan Street. Small in scale, sure. But deep. Grounded. Vibrant with connection.

How many of us can say that?

How many of us truly live where we are?