THERE GOES THE NEIGHBORHOOD
Journal of Healing – April 23, 2003
By Mary Koch

The house we live in sits on a kind of Mason-Dixon line between a human neighborhood and a wildlife neighborhood.

You can stand mid-point in our house, look out the front windows and see a tree-lined street with pedestrians and kids. Turn 180 degrees, look out the back windows and see a tree-lined river with lots of water fowl, fish and resident beaver.

A neighbor asked me one time, "Where does John like to sit? What does he look at from his wheelchair?"

Initially after his stroke my husband was dealing with the fact that he couldn't walk, couldn't move, and couldn't talk. How would this once gregarious personality connect with other people? That's when he chose the street view exclusively. I asked him why. "I like seeing people," he spelled.

* * *

OURS IS NOT a high-traffic street; it doesn't even have a white stripe down the center. But it's popular with people walking dogs and kids doing the thousands of things kids find to do on a stretch of asphalt.

The street plunges down a steep hill, makes a sharp curve and then, in our block, straightens and flattens. The route is especially attractive to adventurous bicyclists and skate boarders, who scream downhill and carom past our house at speeds far beyond anything safe.

The flat part of the street is ideal for John to drive his power wheelchair. I've often thought I should ask the city to post a "Wheelchair Driver" sign at the end of the block, like those "Children Playing" signs. But neighbors watch out for him and drivers politely slow down, giving him wide berth as they pass.

After a few years, John again became interested in the river community. In nice weather, he sits outside for long hours, watching and listening to the amazing hubbub of birds, ducks and geese.

Sometimes the river and human neighborhoods intersect.

A long time ago, before John's stroke, our neighbor Jerry recruited him to help erect a goose tub on a tiny island across the river from our house.

Every spring we watch with happy anticipation as Mama Goose settles into the tub. We turn from casual watchers to committed sentries after the goslings hatch. If we're lucky – and we frequently are – we get to see the baby geese plunge out of the bucket, half free-falling, half-fluttering the five feet to earth.

The parents efficiently gather the youngsters up, herd them into the water and the family takes a swift ride down-river and out of sight.

* * *

THE GOOSE family is usually gone before the major runoff, when our lethargic Okanogan River turns into a heaving current. Last year, after the geese disappeared, so did the bucket, swept away by the mass of melted snow rushing down from Canadian mountains.

I figured our goose-watching days were over. Then Jerry recruited yet another neighbor to put up a new post and tub.

Now every morning we greet Mama Goose, who sits stoically in her bucket, and Papa Goose, who stands guard from our side of the river, watching for any encroachment on his territory. The geese provide us with a daily testimony to the value of patience, endurance and hope.

The other morning, while waking up with my ration of coffee, I watched Papa Goose chase off a blue heron. The goose looked ridiculous, squawking and fluttering after the elegant heron, who glided away effortlessly, as if to say, "What makes you think I want to waste my time in your neighborhood?"

Oh, Mr. Heron. C'mon back when Papa Goose isn't feeling so cranky. It really is a nice neighborhood. Both of them.