My Neighbor George

My Neighbor, George

By: Jiayang Su

George was our neighbor for almost four years, he was friendly and helpful for the whole time. We had lots of problems over the years, and George always tried his best to help us.

It was 4:pm, it was a humid and wet Saturday afternoon, I was five. The colossal storm had ceased, but the power was off. I wished that the lights would come back before night, I was scared of the dark, standard days I always had the tiny light for the closet open. When it was dark, I kept worrying some crazy bear monster in the closet would come out. It was the night when we decided to go out and take a walk to my school. We saw George, there was he standing there, their power wasn’t out. We pulled out an electric wire in the night, which helped us influence up a tiny lamp. The lamp stood in the night, standing up like the stars in the night.

Another day, we saw him walking his dog, Sunny again. I went up to him, and he let me walk him. He never hesitated to let me walk him, no matter how bad I walk him, sometimes I would even drop the leash purposely and chase it, George would give me walk him again. I thought it was fun. I would only walk for a short time since I would get tired of walking and hiking. We strolled. Every time it would last for only or even less than three minutes. Every few days we would see him walking his dog again.

He would stare in the window sometimes, looking at who it was. I guess it was his own way of security.

I genuinely remember the first time I saw him, it was a snowy day. We just moved into the new house. I was four. My mom opened the door slowly and put out an mail. There was a red enveloped letter, I ripped the envelope open, the message was also red too. 

“Don’t be so rough to letters,” my mom said. 

”Wha ti say?”I shouted loudly. 

“It says that our package has been sent there, I’m going to get it, you can come with me.” Mom carefully put the letter away, we went to get the package.

That was the time I first saw him, he was at an ordinary height, a white beard as white as snow, with a loud voice. I stood on my tippy toes, stretch out my arms, and finally rang the doorbell. That was my favorite part of visiting anyone’s house.

”Ding dong.” The bell rang. George came out and said hello to us.    

“Well, hello, new neighbors. I’ll go to get the package, you can take them. It is going to be a long time as neighbors, you know. I hope you have a good time here. If you have a problem, you can ask me I can try and help you.”

He went back and got the package he handed to me, but I could carry it. I dropped it on the floor with a slam, and my mom picked it up.

“Say thank you,” my mom demanded.

“Thak you.”

His house was full of weeds so that they wouldn’t need to trim the grass. It was a beautiful home for bugs and mosquitos. I would get bitten often, sometimes I was even scared to go near his house in the summer. 

In the summer, their house was full of fireflies. I would chase for fireflies there. I would hold the fireflies in my hand and then set them free over on our side of the fence. My dad told me in some article that fireflies can kill the bad bugs that are roaming in our lawn. He later found out that it was wrong. One time, I even put them in a bottle but found out they all died the next day. 

One time I found a rock, but I thought it was pretty special. Everybody said it was a typical rock without even looking at it. But when I showed it to him, George told me it was pretty special, I happily ran back to my house, yelling to my mom.

George was a friend, sometimes after school. I would talk to him sometimes with permission for my parents. When I had worries, and I saw him walking his dog, slowly across. I would call my dad, and he would come with me to walk Sunny. I showed him whenever I lose a tooth, each time George would ask me about the tooth fairy. Our family doesn’t have the tradition of a tooth fairy, so I didn’t even know what it is; in confusion, I would run right back to my house.

The day was a dark and stormy night, the freezing wind brings a chill on my back.  You could hear the crickets cricking in the night, I was seven, that very year. My mom came and told me that she wants to tell me something. I listen intensively, thinking maybe my mom needs to go on a business trip again. 

“Oh, come on, not again. You just went last month and came back a week later, now what, another week of a business trip?” I thought in anger.

But, my mom quietly said with a calming voice but with a bit of sadness, ”George, the neighbor died this morning due to a brain tumor.” 

In the night, I watched his youtube channel where he posts his travels all around the world. There was China, England, France, Chile, Brazil, and Germany. I watched some of them before my mom told me I had to sleep. It was ten pm, long past my bedtime, when I finally got to sleep. I would never see him again. I think I remember one picture of him riding a camel in Africa. 

After George died, we moved soon afterward. His wife, Diane, still lives there, but I think Sunny, the dog has died. Sunny was already seventy in dogs years when I moved. I sometimes think of him, walking Sunny around again, or standing on his front porch. 

When we named our new dog, I thought of calling our dog Sunny too. I asked grandma about the idea, but Grandma said it could be too sad. Having a dog in the house reminding you of the dead. We later named our dog Luna, after I searched it up on the internet and for the most common dog names and found the dog name, Luna. I didn’t plan to use it, but my mom told me it was the best dog name ever.

One day, I was cleaning the room when I saw a letter, a red one. It had a stain, probably a coffee stain. A smudge of long lost times, that was far gone. I opened it slowly, it was George’s letter. The same message George first gave us, I kind of remember the first time we met again. 

“Hello, new neighbors, I’ve heard that you just moved in. I hope you can have a great time here in Rockville, Maryland. It is a great neighborhood here.

Your letter has been delivered to us accidentally. These messengers now make these mistakes often, you’ll have many of these problems over the years. Well, I have put it in my house for safe-keeping, you can come and get it anytime you want. I’m always free.

Your neighbor,

George” 

It was his own sloppy writing. I have to re-read it to make sure what George was saying. But it was his letter, the first time we met. I started to remember everything, from the time we met, the night he died, when he first let me walk his dog, to when he gave me my lamp for the night. It all came in my mind. It was like my head opened, and every memory, when George was alive, rushed in. Like a river never stops flowing. All of my memories of George came back at once.

It was lost a few weeks later, and today, I am still trying to find the missing letter, in a bunch of things in my room, lost in the messes of my room. Over a few months or weeks, I would try and find it, look in the closets, check under the beds, but I never saw that very letter. Maybe already in the trash and gone forever, never coming back like my dearest friend, George.

I had so many memories of George that I don’t have enough words to write them all down. If you add them all together, it could be like a mountain of stories to say. I only wrote in this essay some of the ones I remember the best, in-depth, and some that I will never forget.

George was a friendly neighbor. He let us feel welcome there, and he did. George made us think not new, but a family that had lived here for forty years. He would help us when we needed it, and cheer me on every single day. George was a neighbor so lovely I can’t find another such neighbor and not just a next-door neighbor for me, but a friend, a true friend.

One thought on “My Neighbor George

  1. I love your story. you used so many details and had a great story mountain in all of you little george stories. I also liked it because my dog is named sunny and today is his birthday.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *