Next door neighbor

[jp1]

Two years ago when we moved into our townhouse we quickly met our next door neighbor. An adorable little old lady (then 80ish) who told us that the two things keeping her alive were her dog Max (a little old white terrier of some sort, perhaps a Westie mix) and her garden. Since then I've come to believe that she meant it. I've never seen any visitors and she spends her days working on her garden and taking Max for walks. If she has any other hobbies or interests I haven't seen any sign of them, and she's always home. Since she's often outside working with her flowers (like her tomatoes the flowers are amazing. she's obviously a skilled gardener) when I go somewhere I regularly stop to chat with her but I wouldn't describe us as "close" friends or anything. Just friendly-ish neighbors. Since Max was an old man he had an assortment of ever growing health issues that she's told me about so it wasn't a surprise when she stopped me today to tell me that he had passed away this morning. I'm well aware of how devastating it is when a beloved pet passes away so I can only imagine how much harder it likely is for her with him being probably the most important living being in her life. I wish I had something I could offer her beyond "I'm so sorry for your loss. He was very lucky to have you care for him all these years."

[Simplemind]

How about something to plant in her garden in his memory?

[lmerullo]

Look at that! Simplemind, best answer ever! We can now close the thread 😀

I agree, a plant, a statue or a sign / plaque to remember him would be lovely.

[iris lilies]

Jp, write her a nice note about how well Max was taken care of, how lucky he was to have her, how it was clear he brought joy to her life. And chevk in with her a few times about how she is dealing with his death.

Simplemind, while it is possible she would like some little thing for her garden, I have been the recipient of plants to be planted in memory of dead people and I found it to be a burden.

[Tradd]

Maybe a donation to a local pet rescue in Max’s name?

[iris lilies]

Maybe a donation to a local pet rescue in Max’s name?
Yes, I would like that in this situation.

[jp1]

Thank you for the suggestions. I like the idea of some sort of memorial for the garden but as Iris suggested I don't really know J well enough to know what she would appreciate and I hate to give something that will feel like a burden. So I bought a nice card and will tape it to her door when she's out tomorrow. She appreciated the thank you card that I left after the first batch of tomatoes, so I imagine that a card, along with check-ins every few days to see how she is doing will be good.

We were already thinking about getting a gift card from our city's garden store for her at christmas since she also maintains the flowers alongside our garage (we have separate sidewalks side by side between our two garages so half the flowers are actually on our land between those sidewalks as well as a small patch of flowers against our garage wall). Now that's she's been so generous with her tomatoes I will definitely be doing that. That won't directly relate to the death of Max but it will hopefully be appreciated anyway.

In the meantime I'm also going to give a donation to Marin Humane Society in Max's honor. Besides the fact that this will mean something to her (she adopted him there) we adopted our cats there and the cat behaviorist has been a fantastic help in getting our socially challenged cats comfortable living with humans and enjoying life, spending countless hours texting with me during the first few months we had them and more recently spending 45 minutes talking with me when I had dropped off some old towels as a donation.

[iris lilies]

Well you know some people would like the memorial object and some people would not. For me, I always think in situations like that “do you think I’m not gonna remember my dog.? Why do you think *you* can come up with a meaningful way for me to remember him better than*I*can?”

I like what you’re doing JP, and it has a chance of being universally appreciated.

i’ve told the story many times, but when DH’s mother died, my sister-in-law went all over hell to find a live rosebush to send me to plant in our yard in her memory. My mother in law died in February. Yeah, not really a good idea for this time of year. I had to keep the thing limping along alive until I could get it in the ground months later and then of course it died because it had been through so much crap. And I hate roses, did I mention that?

And then another time when my dad died someone insisted on having a tree planted in his memory in our neighborhood park which was fine except that for some reason she wouldn’t just do it, she kept calling me about details and asking me to do X and Y to accomplish it. I found the whole damn thing to be tiring when I was already just… Tired.

[jp1]

Another thing that has been brought up by a friend of mine is whether to suggest that she adopt another dog when she’s ready. I agree with friend that this would likely be good for helping her live longer since she’s going to be very lonely once the grief starts to subside. But now that I’m becoming her friend and since SO would love to have a dog it seems likely that if she does that we will end up having a dog when she finally passes away. That wouldn’t be terrible but dogs are so much more work than cats…

[iris lilies]

Another thing that has been brought up by a friend of mine is whether to suggest that she adopt another dog when she’s ready. I agree with friend that this would likely be good for helping her live longer since she’s going to be very lonely once the grief starts to subside. But now that I’m becoming her friend and since SO would love to have a dog it seems likely that if she does that we will end up having a dog when she finally passes away. That wouldn’t be terrible but dogs are so much more work than cats…only suggest it if you are absolutely willing to take the dog if she is unable to care for it.

As for “suggesting she get a dog” I think she’s perfectly capable of thinking of that idea herself, I can’t see how you suggesting it would be a help other than removing a large stumbling block for elderly people and getting a dog…where does doggie go in illness and death? But for god sake she should NOT get a young dog.

I’m gearing up to adopt cats and I’m looking at cats that are a minimum of five years old and I would prefer ones in the 8 to 10 year old range because of my age.

[jp1]

only suggest it if you are absolutely willing to take the dog if she is unable to care for it.

As for “suggesting she get a dog” I think she’s perfectly capable of thinking of that idea herself, I can’t see how you suggesting it would be a help other than removing a large stumbling block for elderly people and getting a dog…where does doggie go in illness and death? But for god sake she should NOT get a young dog.

I’m gearing up to adopt cats and I’m looking at cats that are a minimum of five years old and I would prefer ones in the 8 to 10 year old range because of my age.
I agree with you totally. I would be fine with a dog because SO would probably take it to work most days. And yeah, I can’t imagine her training a puppy at this point so she would need one that already had manners. If I get into this so deep that I’m suggesting she get another dog I would suggest one that's at least an adult if not an old adult.

[jp1]

Neighbor sent a very sweet thank you note for the card and donation. And included a couple of pictures of Max in his younger days. He was quite the handsome fellow. And definitely not a Westy as I had guessed. In his old age his coloring had faded to a light gray that made him look like he had once probably been all white, but that's obviously not the case.

4686

[iris lilies]

Neighbor sent a very sweet thank you note for the card and donation. And included a couple of pictures of Max in his younger days. He was quite the handsome fellow. And definitely not a Westy as I had guessed. In his old age his coloring had faded to a light gray that made him look like he had once probably been all white, but that's obviously not the case.

4686

Max is a very cute smush face dog, probably a Shih Tzu.

[JaneV2.0]

He's very handsome!

[Tradd]

Very cute puppers!