Easing the loss of a good man

Photo: Maria Rice

To the Editor,

I just wanted to share with the community a very sweet, considerate, kind, and touching gesture that I just witnessed. My neighbor Bill Titus recently passed away. He was a lifelong member of our fire department. The other night, I heard trucks and saw lights, so I walked four houses down to see what was happening. I witnessed the entire Swarthmore fire department with the trucks’ headlights on to illuminate the yard around Bill and Mary’s house. All of the firefighters were out there raking the lawn, and picking up the hundreds of thousands of black walnuts that fall in the Titus’s yard yearly. I noticed the truck with the black drapery in the front and was actually moved to tears at all of it. They didn’t tell anyone—I’m not even sure that Bill‘s widow Mary was home. They just did it! 

It was such a beautiful, ageless act, and God knows the world needs to see and hear more about beautiful gestures like this one. 

Maria Rice
Swarthmore