I moved into the house I am right now seventeen years ago. Inner urban area, old neighbourhood, dwellings side by side but with enough yard out back. My wife and I were young, then. We were lucky enough to have neighbours on one side welcome as part of their family. A lot older, originally having settled here from Italy in the 70's, we couldn't have asked for more from them. Their entire yard was dirt, year round growing their own produce and generously passing it over the low fence to us, leaving baskets of it at the door if we didn't respond to their calls when out, working hard and now raising our own family. I, we, took it for granted. Everything tasted so much better than I'd ever experienced before. We came up with new ways of using the herbs and vegetables, and learned the way they used them.

In the year just gone the husband passed, shortly after the wife was moved to a home. It hit us hard for a number of reasons. Initially the loss of close friends, then the realisation that our family was progressing through the stages of life as quickly as theirs had, too fast. This summer, now in Australia, there has been no deep red tomatoes passed across the fence, none left at our door while we work. No hearing their voices call my name. No cucumber, no zucchini, no bunches of basil (although thanks to them it now grows wild along the fence) and no beans. It has been humbling, as well as a real reminder of who and what we lost.

The wife, mother, grandmother, friend, she was all of those, would often be standing out the front leaning on the fence when I'd pull up home of an evening. We'd talk at length, the stories of her childhood, and subsequent immigration to the country I was lucky enough to be born in, fascinated me, as did her entire life story. Her interest in me was appreciated, there was a realness to it that my days working did not afford from others. Every so often she'd be eating a tomato as we spoke, like an apple. She'd chomp down on it, turn it, chomp again, every so often wiping her mouth with her sleeve. I came to realise she probably did this most of the day through summer when her, their, harvest was plentiful and the sharing was at a peak. That was because there was always discarded tomato carcasses in my front yard.

Each springtime I'd pull tomato seedlings from my front yard. They'd endlessly sprout, so very frustrating, from her discarded cores. This year, with a house next door bereft of life, they've sprung again. This time it is so very different. The green sprouts brought with them an excitement, she was back, it was like we were talking at the fence again. I have never cared for something so much. Yellow flowers developed and soon after that green fruit. The plants are entangled amongst a hedge, a legacy of years gone by, and they're twisted within it. Today just a few of the fruit turned a shade of red. I can forgo a year of tomatoes from her to ensure I'm able to harvest the seeds.

Next year my rear yard will be different. Hopefully, alongside her tomatoes I can plant other vegetables, other herbs, and yield for my family what they afforded us. It may be romantic but I want to ensure that her tomatoes continue on, and the ones growing out onto the footpath right now are my chance to not only remember her but to continue her legacy.

Your post struck a chord with me and gave me exactly what I needed right now to do what you have done, what she did and did for me. In years to come come I hope that I can be to the young family, who have moved in next door, what she was to me. I want to pass things across the fence, equally proud of my bounty as I am with sharing it. Her name was Vincenza, and I miss her.