Our Neighbour, Ozzy

Lockdown has given us unexpected gifts, and taken from us treasures whose value we didn’t know until they were gone.

I remember the first time I saw Ozzy when we moved into our neighborhood. Skull rings and neck tattoos, leather coats and heavy metal t-shirts.

Last year, sometime before the pandemic Lyndsay was doing the school run. In the rush to get along, Bixby — our son, then 4 — got tangled in his pedals and fell in the cross walk. He was fine. But along comes Ozzy, bent down in the street to make sure Bix was okay. Since then, he adopted us.

He’s spoiled the kids with presents: from the corner shop, the charity shop, treasures he’s found while shuffling down to the shops. He pops by to say hello with his dog, a fluffy wisp of a Chihuahua named Harley Davidson.

At one point last summer, Bixby must have heard my mum, his grandmother, talking about an article she’d read about how grandparents could safely give their grandchildren a cuddle. One of the things it said was that the kids could always hug a grandparent’s knees.

One day, Ozzy came by with some treasure he’d found for Bix. “Thank you, Ozzy,” Bix chirped and then swept in and gave Ozzy a cuddle around his knees.

Ozzy — a man living on his own in a studio council flat — talked about that cuddle for months.

When I told Ozzy I’d like to draw his portrait, he let me snap a couple of pictures of him. I drew this picture of him from a photo from last summer. It turned into a jack-o-lantern idea at Halloween. I gave Ozzy the drawing as a Christmas present.

Ozzy died on the morning of Sunday, March 21st. He turned 56 earlier that month.

I’m full of guilt for the lost moments and for at first only being able to see the skulls and the tattoos, and not the man yearning for connection beneath.

At the same time, I’m so grateful for the joy that Bixby’s cuddle — and our kids in general with their lack of judgement and openness — gave him.

I can’t help but smile with tears in my eyes to think of Ozzy popping by on Aurelia’s birthday and joining in a game of pin the horn on the unicorn.

—Nye