One of my neighbors died about a year ago. It wasn’t totally unexpected. He was in his 80s and had health issues for some time. He went relatively quickly, spending just a week or so in a care facility before passing on. Still, when I heard the news, it was a bit of a shock. He was gone, and I never had the chance to say goodbye. I couldn’t help but feel that somehow I’d let him down by missing his final days. It seemed I should have known he was leaving. But it was too late for both of us.

The streets where we build our little communities define our concept of home. Our neighborhood has always reminded me of an island. It’s been something of a safe little universe, the people acting like trees, spreading individual branches into a sheltering canopy of experiences that we all shared. We look after each other. My neighbor who passed was a crusty old-timer who had lived in the house across the street his entire life. I’m pretty sure that he’d been born there—probably delivered at home by Doctor Samuel Beale. He’d known all the families that had lived in my house over the past three quarters of a century. And he wasn’t shy about commenting on them. He was “old Sandwich” in the truest sense. Eight decades gave him a rare perspective on how his town had changed from a rural community of less than 2,000 people to a modern suburban town 10 times greater in population. He took it all in stride and, I guess, did his best to cope with it.

Afternoons in good weather, we’d sit together under the shade tree in his front yard, and he would mention people and places long gone. He was a good storyteller, and whether it was a tourist stopping to purchase one of his birdhouses or one of us who just happened by, there was always time for conversation. He never minded if you interrupted his nap. I always assumed that at some point he had been married, but in all our conversations, that didn’t surface. And it was only later that I learned that indeed he’d had a wife. He played the long game in that little house and was comfortable with its secrets.

In the time we’ve lived here, our neighborhood “island” has been diminished as the tides of life have eroded its banks. When my wife and I moved into the old house on Main Street, the neighbors gathered and gave us a welcoming party. It was unexpected, and it told us we’d picked a special place. Almost 20 years later, most of those people have passed on or moved away. The inevitable tide of life has done its work. It’s clear that, unlike a shorefront cottage, we can’t put our lives on pilings to delay the relentless fate that awaits us. And as I look out at the dark little cottage across the street, which has recently been sold to new people, I know the tide is continuing to rise for those of us who’ve been here a while. And I make a silent vow to those old friends who are still around, that in this new year I’m going to say hello more often so that when it comes, the final goodbye won’t feel like just an afterthought.

Mr. Coogan lives on Main Street in Sandwich.

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