I Tried To Save My Neighbor’s Life With CPR. After He Died, I Got A Text I Never Saw Coming.

As I exit the building, my door lady says, “Nathan, he didn’t seem to be doing well.” 

“No, no he’s not,” I tell her. 

The dog leads me straight to the dog park. The sun is bright. The dog is happy. The dog leads me back home.

When I get back to my neighbor’s apartment, I look around and ask myself, What seems out of place here? I scour the room for any medical waste to throw out. The EMS team seems to have placed most of it in an orange bag in the corner of the room. I grab it and fold my neighbor’s pants, which they’d removed, and put them back on his chair. I place his slippers neatly by the chair, turn off the TV and take the dog to my apartment. I don’t want it to look like something awful had just happened when the family returns home.

The dog is the only thing keeping me calm. I’m grateful to have a responsibility — a task to keep me busy. I turn on my TV and sit down, and the dog sits on my lap. I wonder if that’s routine for him — if it was what the husband used to do. The dog races around and grabs one of my socks. There’s so much to sniff. He makes me laugh, but I immediately question why am I able to laugh at this sweet ignorance after what I’ve just been through. I take a picture of the dog and post it to my Instagram stories with a caption that reads, “Emotional Support Pup.” The hearts and comments soon roll in, but they go unread.

I call my boss and tell him I need to work from home… if I am even in a state to work. Two Zoom calls later, I realize I can’t, and that none of my work seems to matter. I speak to my editor on the phone about what happened, and he tells me, “What you need is a stiff drink.” Another coworker calls and echoes his advice: “You need to get out of your apartment and go to a bar.” They mean well, but I’m newly sober, and that’s the last thing I need. Besides, dulling what I am feeling wouldn’t work because I’m not feeling anything. Why are there no tears?

A few hours later I got a text message from his wife: “He is gone.” 

That poor family — and that poor man, whom I’d seen so many times before in the elevator but had never spoken to aside from a “Have a good day.”

A part of me wishes I’d struck up a conversation with him, but we don’t do that sort of thing in New York City. Yet I had just done something his friends and family never had to do to him, and never will. 

My head begins to spin with a million thoughts. If something were to happen to my parents in Florida, would there be someone to help and treat them with respect while doing so? Could I have done more for this family? What if I’d answered the door sooner or done the compressions harder?

I want a do-over.

Later that day, the daughter comes to my apartment with some friends to pick up the dog. 

“You’re a hero,” her friend says. I don’t feel like one. 

“I wish I could’ve done more,” I tell them. 

“You’ve done more than you know — you’re family now,” someone else says. 

“Oh, I’m just the neighbor.” 

The daughter seems to be doing OK, but I am a mess. Do I have a right to feel this way? Did they know this was coming? It’s not like he was a friend or a family member. Is that why I had been so calm? Is this how medical professionals feel? Or is it because I deal with high pressure work situations and panicked producers trying to get the news on TV? What will I feel the next time I hear sirens? 

The building I live in on the Upper West Side is large and filled with many older people. Emergency vehicles arrive at the front door at least once a month, and I’ve never thought much of it before. It just seemed like a natural, though obviously sad, part of life.

Occasionally a poster noting the death of a longtime neighbor appears in our lobby. Will there be one for him? Will I soon hear construction in my neighbor’s apartment as it moves from rent-controlled to market rate with shiny new appliances and quadrupled rent? Is that how I ended up in my place? There’s so much I haven’t considered before, and suddenly all of it is rushing into my head.

I can’t stop thinking about the man I couldn’t save. The family’s apartment was covered with jazz posters — were they his? What about all of those CDs and vinyls? Is it weird to want to go to the funeral of a man I’ve never spoken to before in the hopes of learning more about him? Did he have a full life? Were there things he was looking forward to that he’ll never get to do? 

Another neighbor, a cantor, comes to my door and gives me a long hug. Pressing her palm to my chest she says, “You did good, do you hear me? You did good. You performed a sacred act that’s called a mitzvah. She came to you because she trusted you, just like I did before when I needed help.” 

The tears come. I’ve been holding it in, but thanks to my neighbor’s kind words, I am able to drop my guard.

She gives me her keys so I can pet her two kitties while she’s out at dinner. It helps. As I’m petting them, my mind continues to swirl. I hope my neighbor knew in his last moments that he was surrounded by people who cared about him. I hope he felt like he had some dignity. I wonder if he would’ve liked me. 

I’m not sure what I’m supposed to do now. Is this where the story with my neighbors ends, or is it just the beginning for us? Will I ever learn his name? I’m just the neighbor, I remind myself. 

The next day I wake up early. I had a hard time sleeping, and in the middle of the night, a panic attack caused me to imagine that the pillows on my floor were my neighbor. I can’t stop myself from wishing I could have done more. If my doorbell rang twice this morning, I’d already be awake. Maybe I would be quicker today. Maybe it would make a difference. I don’t know. I’ll never know.

Twenty-four hours have elapsed, but it feels like an eternity. My life hasn’t changed at all, but at the same time, I’m not the same person I was yesterday. I’m aware of how many people are waking up at this very moment in my building, in my city, in this country, and how many lives are starting and moving forward and ending around the world. I realize, more than ever before, how interconnected we are — or can be, if we choose to be or are suddenly made to be. It makes me want to pay more attention to everything and everyone around me. It makes me want to tell the people in my life that I love them. It makes me want to spend more time getting to know the people I see every day but rarely interact with.