Our longtime Mountain Shadows neighbor, Norma Jean Sanguinetti, passed away earlier this month, just a few weeks shy of her 88th birthday. “Mrs. Jean,” as our boys called her, died the way most of us would like to go – peacefully in her sleep. She had been happily visiting with friends, went to take a nap, and didn’t wake up.

It was Leonardo da Vinci, the Renaissance artist and intellect, who wrote in one of his notebooks, “As a well-spent day brings happy sleep, so a life well spent brings happy death.” He was suggesting that sleep, even the eternal kind, comes more easily to the productive.

We all have neighbors, and Jean and her husband, “Mr. Ken,” have been great ones. Ken is 95 years old. When my elderly father moved in with us, Ken offered to bring my dad to Mass on Saturday evenings. Like the mailmen of old, they went to St. Francis no matter the weather, once even in a blizzard. There might be too many grumpy old men, but there’s also nothing quite like the persistence and reliability of seasoned citizens.

But this has been a tough stretch for the Sanguinettis, as the inevitable consequences of aging have caught up with them. I was coming back from an early morning run a few months ago and found a firetruck with its lights flashing parked in front of their house. The firefighter told me Ken had fallen and had been taken to the hospital by ambulance.

“His wife is pretty upset and confused,” he shared. “You might check in with her.”

The Sanguinettis live with their daughter, but Kat was traveling internationally. I found myself in their kitchen in the predawn dark, doing my best to console and comfort. I asked if I could pray with Jean, and she agreed. Later that day, my wife then did what you do for ailing neighbors – she made a meal and prayed with her, too.

We read a lot these days about increasing isolation and loneliness, especially with the elderly. The loss of the front porch has cut down on casual and serendipitous conversations, as well as our tendency to drive into our garages and quickly shut the door. Even the increasing use of central air conditioning in homes has a way of shutting out the world. It may keep us physically cooler, but it risks cooling affections between neighbors.

We share a fence with the Sanguinettis, and their house is positioned on the property so that their kitchen window overlooks our backyard. Last year, our middle son inadvertently shot an arrow through it. When I heard the commotion, I saw a bewildered Mrs. Jean gazing through the shattered pane. The replacement cost at City Glass was a little over $500, but the Sanguinettis only accepted $250 from Will because of the snow he and his brothers had shoveled for free for them.

“The window is one of the essential elements of architecture because it gives light and view,” observed the pioneering designer Frank Lloyd Wright. From that window, Ken, Jean, and Kat have looked out towards our home and Ute Valley Park, but we’ve also heard via it some of what has gone on inside their kitchen. We don’t eavesdrop, but you can’t help but hear what’s going on when you live so close.

Kat is a great cook, and in the evenings when that window was open, we’d hear the dinner prep – the banging of pans and sometimes even catch the great aromas of the meal. But we’d especially hear the laughter, which in a home is the equivalent of warm sunshine on a beach or a crackling fire on a cold day.

Ken is now in a rehabilitation facility and won’t be coming back due to increased care needs. I looked at that window the other day, and it struck me: the season of those sounds and scenes is over. We won’t run into Ken or Jean at the mailbox anymore, or have a spontaneous conversation outside.

Robert Frost famously said good fences make good neighbors, but it might well be that such an overemphasis on boundaries is one reason we’re facing an epidemic of loneliness. King Solomon may have been warning against mankind’s nature when he wrote, “Better a neighbor nearby than a relative far away.”

Look for neighbors like the Sanguinettis – but just make sure your son doesn’t shoot an arrow through their kitchen window.

Paul J. Batura is a local writer and founder of the 4:8 Media Network. He can be reached via email Paul@PaulBatura.com or on X @PaulBatura.