By Laura Allen

Should I write an obituary? No one else had. I’m not family or even a close friend; I didn’t even know his last name, which is why I did nothing. What would you do?

But as the leaves changed — green to crimson to gold — and dropped to Earth before being reborn under the spring sky, I thought about Freddie — my old neighbor. He walked the streets of Eugene with a backpack full of home baked treats to share with people in his path; he loved to chat and brighten people’s days. Someone like him shouldn’t pass away with no recognition; it’s not right. That’s why I want to tell you this. 

Freddie always walked down the middle of our road, dressed like a teenager in baggy pants, a T-shirt and black Converse All-Stars, with a durag holding down his wild white hair. He’d pause in front of our field, sway front to back and yell greetings to our cow or the goats. “I love you, Lumay,” he’d bellow. 

I met Freddie shortly after moving to Eugene. I was in the front yard with my daughter, then 6 years old, when he strolled by. He must have called her over; by the time I caught up, he was filling her eager hands with cookies and lemon bars pulled from his backpack. Who was this guy? 

He lived in a recovery house up the block, where he baked and probably annoyed his many roommates with constant chatter. His specialties were chocolate chip cookies, lemon bars, brownies, and blondies. He’d once been a professional baker, at Barry’s Espresso Bakery and Deli, and it showed. His treats were perfect and delicious, carefully wrapped in clear plastic for delivery. 

Starting on our small, residential street, he’d walk to the bus stop, chatting up anyone he saw on the way. The bus drivers remember him: “A really nice guy,” they told me, “super sweet.” The kind of person that makes your day when he steps on the bus. 

At least once a week, he’d get off at Fred Meyer. Some workers there remember him: “He was really great… so friendly.” He’d talk to everybody from the Starbucks all the way down the departments till the meat counter. He’d also buy food for homeless people outside, they told me. “Just a very good soul.” 

Another stop was the bank on West 11th. He’d chat and share baked goods with the workers. This was his world. And he wanted everyone in it to be happy. 

For 15 years, Freddie visited a woman who worked at Fred Meyer, chatting about life, always with a smile. When she left to work at Walmart, he went there, too, just to check on her, for she’d had health problems. “He was a good person,” she told me. 

Being a good person might not mean he was also a good father or a good brother. Maybe that’s why Freddie said he had no family. Maybe that’s why no one wrote him an obituary or held a memorial service. From what I gather, most of the people in Eugene who cared about him didn’t even know he’d died until much later. 

I knew he struggled: Alcohol had a grip on him, he never escaped. One winter day, I offered him a ride downtown. Wiping cold rain from his face, he told me why I hadn’t seen him lately; he’d been in the hospital. After a bad spell, he passed out on the floor of his room for a few days before anyone found him. “I almost didn’t make it,” he said. 

Maybe part of the reason no one honored his life was because Freddie hated the spotlight. One neighbor, a former athletics photographer for Churchill High School’s sports teams, told me how Freddie baked cookies (around 10,000 cookies over the years!) to share with the athletes at games, but never stayed long enough for anyone to thank him. Maybe his baking was atonement. But what does it matter? He put love into cookies and spread them around the community. That is the person I knew. 

When our house was under construction, Freddie met the workers who parked out front. He “wanted them to have a good impression of the neighborhood,” he told me, so he gave them treats. 

Even though he spent so much time thinking of others, I worried he’d been alone at the end. But then I learned a neighbor had sat by his bedside. When Freddie’s hand shook too much to hold a spoon, our neighbor, Joe, tipped a bowl of potato chowder into his mouth. Joe visited him every day; he changed the sheets. Why didn’t Joe tell anyone when Freddie passed? Maybe he didn’t know we cared. 

Had we ever shown we cared? The pandemic ended and time stretched on until, finally, I learned Freddie’s last name. After that, the missing details fell into place, importantly, his birth and death dates. Then I waited even longer before writing this, wanting to find a photo of Freddie. I’d hoped that you could see his image as you read — his kind eyes behind thin-rimmed glasses, tufts of white hair sticking out the sides of a durag printed in the red, white and blue of the flag. 

Freddie treated everyone in his path with the same care; it didn’t matter if he’d just met you or had known you for decades, whether you stood in front of your house or sat on the grease-stained sidewalk, whether you were 6 or 60 — he’d share home-baked goods, stories and well-wishes. I imagine some people found this strange, and I did too, at first. But now all I see is the beauty — to see the good in every single person, without question.   

Thank you, Freddie, for making this world a sweeter place. You were a good neighbor. 

Laura Allen is a writer and educator. Read more at LauraAllen.me.