Opinion : Saying goodbye to the the neighbor

A few months after we started Vinton Today, we had the unfortunate task of covering a fire at the home of our dear neighbors, Lester and Donna Geiger, and their little dog.

We watched in horror as their home burned to the ground, and as we saw the "local" TV stations pull into our yard and begin to harass the ambulance workers as they cared for our neighbors, it began to shape who we would be as we became the new voice in Vinton.

We shared their story with you, our readers, and you responded with donations to the family and helped to get them back on their feet.

It was a bitter cold winter day. That year we had had a lot of snow so the path to our door was pretty narrow with snow drifts.

As we sat on the couch with Donna, and as Lester sat in the car with their dog and watched the house and the fire departments respond to the fire, we talked about nothing important, just reminisced over the time we had shared together as neighbors.

After that I think we saw them both once more as they visited the site of their home. We ran into Lester a couple times in Independence, and talked for quite a while about how things were going, and he talked about missing the country.

Lester was a WWII veteran. He wasn't one of those soft fellas you see now. He was a tough guy. We realized pretty quickly that he was one that his bark was much worse than his bite.

Our daughters loved to walk across the road and visit with the two of them. Once after returning we heard, “Did you know that THEY have 6 kids too? Just like us!” Yeah, it's a rare thing to find another family that “huge”. After that they eagerly returned to hear stories of WWII and serving in the Navy from Lester and stories about the family from Donna.

Cookies and homemade treats made it back and forth across the road.

When we first moved in, the idea of a family with kids didn't sound appealing to Lester. He'd had bad experiences with other people's children so when we heard about us moving next door...

The day their house burned down, our kids lost a gold mine in those friendships.

Just this year we discovered that their little 2 acre plot was sold to a new family.

Immediately we stepped into the Geigers' shoes. Who are the new people? Will they be good neighbors? Will we like them? And the idea that the country is getting crowded with MORE people immediately ran through our minds. Then we laughed. We realized that NOW we understood how Lester and Donna must have felt when we moved in next door.

Today we received word that Mr. Geiger (as we always referred to him) had died, we all cried a little bit. Another of those rare WWII veterans, another of those “real” men, another of those tough as nails, soft as teddy bear guys was gone.

It's just another reminder that the ones that know the most about this world, are the ones we miss the most when they're gone.

I am so grateful for the time we had together in our small corner of the world, and especially for the times they opened the door to our daughters and eagerly shared their life with the two little girls that loved every minute of it.

May the lessons learned from you be carried on through the lives of all those you touched.