Hell of a way to meet the neighbors

I've lived where I am now for almost five years. The neighborhood's nice but everyone kind of keeps to themselves, and I'm as guilty as the next person.

This evening as I was pulling into my driveway, I saw a lady I didn't recognize walking around my next-door neighbor's house, clearly searching. She was probably in her 40s or so, was talking on a cell phone, and had a worried look on her face. "Oh, no," I thought, "she's lost a pet."

As I was getting out of my car, she approached me and introduced herself as G. She hadn't lost a pet. She'd lost her mother-in-law, D.

It turns out D, who lives two doors down from me and with whom I've exchanged occasional smiles and waves but not much more, has dementia that is apparently getting worse. G and other members of the family live in the next two places down, and apparently moved D into that one next to them when it came open last year. Evidently this isn't the first time she's wandered away without telling anyone but it does seem to be a new thing they're dealing with.

I got D's description - clothes, etc. - from G, so I could keep my eyes open for her, and strongly encouraged her to call the police right away. As we parted, G called me to the back of my house where my crawlspace door was standing wide open, and I always leave it closed. She called into the crawlspace for D but got no answer and said she didn't think D would go in there.

I came into my house and realized immediately I couldn't just sit and hope for the best. So I put my stuff down and went back out. I wanted to find out where people were already looking so I could go look in other places. The sun was going to go down in about an hour and the idea of her being out there alone and confused and helpless in the dark was something I had to do more than just shake my head about, but I wanted someone's phone number so I could call if I found her.

As I was knocking on the door, J, another family member I know now, came from the direction of my house and said they'd found her and she (J) had been looking for me to tell me. D had found an open back door on the house between hers and mine, and had let herself in and was pushing furniture around, which is something she apparently does a good bit of. Not violent, probably more like, "This chair doesn't belong over here." Those folks didn't happen to be home at the time (I bet they close and lock their back door more regularly from now on), so G was going to write them a note.

So, happy ending to what could have been a really bad situation. And now I know my neighbors. Plus, now I know to keep an eye out if I see D walking up her driveway away from her house.