Know The Obit Before They Die
Moving piece by my good friend David Wallis about the death of a neighbor, published in Drexel University's The Smart Set. An excerpt:

Robert Aronson was not a borrow-the-sugar kind of neighbor. A balding man with a bushy mustache and oval black plastic spectacles that dominated his face, Mister Aronson -- as I always called him -- kept to himself. He only offered a polite hello and perhaps the West Fourth Street weather report when we occasionally passed each other on the stairs of our Greenwich Village walk-up. Once or twice he knocked on my door to alert me that my keys dangled in the lock. I always found his reserve strange, considering that we shared a profession. Mr. Aronson worked as a copy editor at a daily newspaper in Jersey City, retiring in 2002; I sensed that he might have been downsized or had taken a buyout. We occasionally complained to each other about the dismal state of the newspaper industry, but that was the extent of our camaraderie. I chalked up his aloof demeanor to the difference in our ages. He looked to be about 20 years older than I, but it turned out to be a 31-year gap.

Our singular social interaction outside the building came two years ago. I invited him to a reading I was giving at a local Barnes & Noble to celebrate one of my books on censorship. But even at that festive occasion we men of words exchanged but few.

Over the years, I gleaned hardly anything else about Mr. Aronson. I can't recall ever seeing him with company. He apparently enjoyed hiking. Sometimes in the summer he looked like a big kid in shorts, a T-shirt, tube socks, and hiking boots. And he must have loved jazz. Sax solos routinely burst through his black metal door. I imagined Mr. Aronson methodically removing a Charlie Parker record from the jacket stored in a plastic sleeve, checking both sides for scratches and gently placing the disk on a vintage turntable. But he could have owned a brand new MP3 player for all I knew, as I never set foot in his apartment. In Manhattan, proximity does not necessarily mean close.

Nevertheless, the sight of a DayGlo-green sticker affixed to his suddenly padlocked door -- "Police Department, Seal for Door of D.O.A. Premises" -- stung like a jab to the jaw. Mr. Aronson, 73, had died alone in his apartment while I was I on the other side of our shared plaster wall. Since we were never pals, I felt that I had no license to grieve. Yet I surprisingly choked up, wondering about his demise.

I hoped that he had suffered a massive heart attack in his sleep rather than a paralyzing stroke that left him unable to call for help. Would he have breached the barrier of politeness and called me in distress? Did he have next of kin? Would my neighbor end up in a potter's field?

I feel a distant connection to the guy because I've stayed in David's apartment a number of times in the years after I left New York. I wonder which of the black steel doors was his (probably to the right), or if I ever saw him.

I'm reminded that I need to use the phone number I tracked down and call Ms. Michael Drury, a wise woman, and the aging author of the now-out-of-print but still available (used) book, Advice to a Young Wife from An Old Mistress. It's a book I recommend with some frequency to readers, and a book I just recommended to Harper Collins that they reprint. I offered to write the forward and recommend it in my column.

I'm also sentimental about people I care about who've died. I keep their names and long-out-of-service phone numbers on my mobile phone, and love when people e-mail me about them and remind me of them for a moment during some busy day. And I even wear Cathy Seipp's black suede pants that her daughter Maia gave me. Best, though, to grab all the contact you can while people are still here.