Hela

This is the streetview of Google Maps of our street.
Our watch dog neighbours immortalized forever as we have always known them.  Sitting on the veranda and carrying on a loud conversation with Wilma in the bungalow across the street.
After a while Wilma would slowly make her way over and pull herself up the steps to her spot on the veranda.  I was never sure what they were saying because Wilma would talk in Serbian, while Hela and Ola responded in Polish.

Hela and Ola, have been our only neighbours to the south.

Our two houses might as well have been connected.  Kieran would go over there as if it was his own home.  And these two ladies welcomed him.
I would often find him skipping supper at our house, and instead head over next door for some of Ola's soup.

Kieran knew where the cookies were.  And he would take over their tv and change the channel from Jeopardy! to Treehouse so he could watch Max & Ruby.  And they would watch it with him.

I would often peer into their bay window to see Kieran napping on their couch.
When I would go in to get him, they would tell me he wasn't there.  But there he was wrapped in a crocheted blanket asleep.

Whenever Kieran was sick. A big bowl of soup would be heading our way.  We don't have a doorbell, but I would hear the rapping on our side door and Ola holding a chipped bowl full of home made noodle soup wrapped with towel.

These were his grandmothers.

Hela this morning moved on.
After several heart attacks, but a broken hip caused by a stroke, finally overwhelmed her frail form.
Before the stroke, we weren't seeing Hela much on the veranda.  I would often see her by her bedroom window at the front there.  We knew this day would come, one day.

We will miss her scowling watchdog face on the veranda next door.

April 21, 2012