The house next door to mine is for sale again. It belongs to an East Indian family, who over their 20 years on this cul de sac, have enriched my life in more ways than I can count.

When we moved here from Vancouver in 1990, we had two small boys, the first two years old and the second just born. Only three of the eight building lots on the cul de sac had houses on them, the house that now sits next door, still an empty landscape of imagination.

They'd just finished digging the foundation for my friend's home, and beside our front porch, on the day we moved in, was a gigantic pyramid shaped mountain of dirt and debris. My two year son from the back seat of the car began yelling excitedly, 'CASTLE! CASTLE!'. I was delighted, thinking he somehow intuitively had absorbed my thrill of my first home being a castle. Instead, he ran from the car straight into the mountain of dirt, having found his own castle in the new neighborhood.

That castle soon became a red brick and vibrant cerulean blue East Indian style castle home, complete with the new owner's initials proudly announcing themselves in red brick on the front facade of the house. On the day they moved in, three carloads of people arrived with them, laughing and enthusiastically speaking Punjabi with each other. The youngest son in their family, maybe a year and half at the time, a tiny beany haired thing, raced straight into my house, leaving his family to themselves. His mom came running to fetch him, not speaking a word of English but able to clearly communicate both her pride and amusement at the antics of her firstborn son.

Over the years, our lives have intertwined, sometimes in person and sometimes by me simply observing their comings and goings through my kitchen window. The story of their lives has unfolded before me. From the ancient grandfather who sat outside in the garden on his commode, the father who chased wild eyed neighborhood boys out of his house flinging a bejeweled shoe, through births and deaths, weddings, new washing machine celebrations, dancing parties, visiting relatives from India, basketball games and shared chai teas and roti.

For all the bad rap thrown at the East Indian culture, I've witnessed family connection and warmth that greatly surpasses that of our private & isolated western ways.

Today, my youngest son rushed in announcing that tragedy had struck the family next door once again. Less than 7 years ago, my neighbor friend, one of three sisters, lost her youngest sister in a massive car accident. I met Cally and her remaining sister on the front lawn, they both hugged me, in broken English, sobbing, 'my very nice sister! my very nice sister!' Today, the sister who stood with Cally on the lawn that day died also.

Her 18 year old son, when he found her, grabbed her hand, sobbing, 'No mom! You're not dead!' and before fleeing from the room, put his fist deep into the drywall, leaving a hole I can only imagine must feel the same in his heart.

I'm looking across now at the house, shades drawn, knowing I need to cross that great chasm of sadness and stop in. But I'm afraid of their grief and tears.

I'm so tired of the inescapability of death. The way it ravages from us the ones we love. Sometimes I tell myself I'm crazy for living in such fear of it - but even more insane is to not. We live, we love in a temporary world. And somehow within it, must learn tolerance of uncertainty and loss or we'll surely lose our minds. I simply can't live without a hope of another world, where the ones we've loved and lost are more than just phantom voices...

I'm taking the paltry pasta salad dish I made for my family's dinner, over for theirs now, little good it will do.

What in the world can i possibly give or do that might convey my understanding of what has struck them once again?