We know our neighbour a few houses down in passing - waving from the porch, polite hellos sort of thing, and sometimes longer chit chat if we’re arriving home at the same time. He always wandered over to meet our babies when they were born. Nice older chap.
A few weeks ago, his DW passed away after a long illness, albeit under traumatizing circumstances (had her illnesses relatively managed for over a decade, then declined very quickly, had to be stabilized over the course of more than an hour at home by the paramedics before they could even bring her out to the ambulance, on life support in the hospital for a night, and then the family had to make the decision to take her off life support… just terrible circumstances. I know this from another neighbour who is closer to the family).
He has really spiralled since then. Unwashed, unshaven, gaunt. I dropped off a meal for him a couple of weeks ago, for which he was very thankful, but haven’t spoken with him otherwise.
Yesterday was a beautiful, sunny afternoon, so 5-yo DD and her friend set up a lemonade & fresh-baked cookies stand outside for a couple of hours. Loads of people stopped by and were very friendly. It was a lovely afternoon. Towards the end, I saw our neighbour arrive home and head into his house. I was about to start helping the girls clean up, so I said, “hey girls, why don’t you bring a cup of lemonade and a little bag of cookies over to Mr. L. You don’t need to chit chat, just say hello, hand over the food, and come back home.” They we’re excited to complete this little mission.
I kept an eye on them as they walked three houses over, and reached up for the doorbell. They waited for a while, but our neighbour didn’t come out. They said “he isn’t home”, but I said “no, no, he just went in. Are you sure you actually rang the bell?” (Sometimes my DD struggles to push our bell hard enough). DD tried once again, and then so did her friend. ( 🤦♀️) Still no answer, so I said “ok, never mind, he must not want visitors right now. Why don’t you leave the bag of biscuits on the doorstep and come home”. At that point, the door flung open, our neighbour leaned down right into their faces, and shouted at them to go away and leave him alone.
This is very out of character for him, but I kind of understand under the circumstances, especially if they rang his bell three times (I HOPE just three times??? They were only there for 2 minutes but I had my eye on the baby for 30 seconds or so…)
The girls thankfully weren’t upset, just said sorry and skipped home and got back to tidying and playing. Our neighbour had slammed the door before I could call over to apologize.
So… do I leave it, or should I write a short apology taped to another meal. I am worried about him, and I feel just terrible for encouraging the girls to disturb his peace (since that seems to be how he perceived it).
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TLDR: 5-yo DD and friend rang an older widower’s doorbell 3ish times over the course of about 2 minutes trying to drop off some cookies for him mid-afternoon when he’d just arrived home. He was very upset by it and shouted at them. I was 3 houses over and would have called out an apology immediately but he’d slammed the door before I could. Should I send an apology note, or leave it be? I feel simply terrible about them having disturbed him (especially as it was my apparently ill-conceived idea).