by Linda Ibbitson Hurd
Special to the Express
S hortly after I moved to Halifax in the 1970s, an older couple moved in across the street from me. They were to become very important to my kids and me.
My marriage had broken up and I was alone with two young children. My son Brian was starting second grade and my daughter Heidi was four and also deaf. I was holding down a job so I could keep my house and I needed someone to get my son off to school in the morning and to take Heidi until I got home in the afternoon.
The man and his wife who moved in were friendly and my kids and I liked them right away. Their names were Kitty and Les. They were from the Boston area, Les a retired Respiratory Therapist from the Deaconess hospital and Kitty a seamstress. As we got to know each other and they found out my situation Kitty offered to help with my kids and agreed to the price I could afford to pay.
My ex was not good about keeping in touch with our kids and Heidi especially became attached to Les. Kitty and Les were a couple of color and one Winter morning when my kids and I were in Cumberland Farms on a Sunday picking up a few groceries, Les walked into the store. Heidi spotted him from the back of the store and started running, her blonde ponytails flying out behind her while she yelled as loud as she could, “Dada!” Les kneeled down on one knee and opened his arms as she ran into them for a big hug. He was smiling and chuckling as people were curiously looking on. The memory still touches my heart.
Kitty and Les were good to my kids and they went willingly every weekday morning to their house. As time passed we grew closer to them and I got to know them very well. They became like family to us. Some years later when I married again, they came to my wedding. I met and got to know some of their family, one being a niece of Kitty’s who was a mounted police officer in Boston and patrolled on horseback.
As Les aged, he developed diabetes. He’d walk over to visit me when Kitty was busy with a customer who needed sewing done and begged me to make him a lemon meringue pie. My heart went out to him but I told him I couldn’t because of his health and because it would upset Kitty. What did finally pacify him was being able to have a small dish of ice cream on a regular basis.
As his health declined, I went over to visit with him often. He became like a second father to me, I could talk to him about anything. He eventually needed a hospital bed which was delivered to the house. Kitty took such good care of him and he was able to stay at home with help from a Visiting Nurse.
One morning when I got up I had a sinking feeling something was wrong. I saw one of my neighbors come out of Kitty’s house and he looked sad. As I stepped outside he looked at me, nodding towards Kitty’s house and I went right over. When I went in Kitty was standing beside Les’s bed, tears running down her face. I gave her a big hug and she said Les had just passed.
Every Easter Les gave Kitty an Easter Lily and every year he’d plant it in their front yard in hopes it would bloom the next year. Some bloomed but were scraggly, they never did well. The Easter after Les passed I was in my kitchen when I heard someone calling my name. I looked outside and Kitty was coming up my walk.
“Come, you have to see this, please come!” she said.
She seemed dazed and close to tears. Alarmed, I went with her. As we approached her house a strong scent filled the air and to my amazement her small front yard was filled with beautiful Easter Lilies, all in bloom. She gestured toward the flowers saying, “This is not of this world, do you think this is the sign Les promised me when he got to Heaven?” I told her without a doubt I knew it was.