There goes the neighbors

“Yessir, that’s the way it goes,” Dad declared. “Sooner or later come our turn.”

Mom and Dad had participated in a graveside memorialization yesterday for a recently deceased neighbor at the Hawaiian Memorial Park Cemetery. It was a private affair; a somber circle of family members and two neighbors gathering to commemorate a man who was a husband, father, grandfather and good neighbor to us for over forty years. Word of Mr. Masaki’s passing spread quickly through the neighborhood. There was no obituary.

“Mr. Hidoi stopped by today,” Mom blistered. “He named all the neighbors who died, then snickered saying that your father was next!”