Last year was our first Halloween here. I desperately wanted to invite the neighbors over to have some soup and cornbread before trick-or-treating like we used to do in our old neighborhood. But we were new here and didn’t know anyone. My sister-in-law invited us over to have an early dinner and trick-or-treat in her neighborhood, so we did. We had a fantastic time and there were TONS of kids and street after street of houses who were doling out candy. But the whole time, I was feeling a wee bit guilty that we weren’t doing this in our neighborhood. My husband told me to let it go, so I did.

The next morning as my husband was walking to work, he ran into a neighbor a couple houses up. She is an older widow with 2 grown children and was so excited when a family with little kids moved to the street. She asked my husband where we were on Halloween. Apparently, she dressed up and was all ready for the kids to stop by for trick-or-treating (something she hadn’t done for years and years). Alas, after several hours she shut off the light and went to bed disappointed. My husband hesitated to tell me the story. I started to cry when he told me and vowed that we would honor her efforts by trick-or-treating in our own neighborhood this year.

And that we did. We had a few neighbors and some friends who live in Brighton and their kids over for some soup pre-trick-or-treating. Our friends went back home to trick-or-treat and we went out on our own. It was pelting freezing rain (something I’m told to get used to in Rochester at Halloween), so we only ventured out on our street and the one next to ours. The first house we stopped by, of course, was that of our neighbor who had been disappointed by our absence the year before. We rang the bell twice and finally went on. As we walked down her walkway, the door opened and an uber-costumed figure stepped out and beckoned the kids with much theatricality. “Trick-or-treat!” they yelled and giggled at the whole scene. She had a big burlap sack and pulled out all sorts of things — rubber snakes, a plant, a rubber chicken — as she searched for treats. I got all teary from the sheer joy of seeing my kids delight in the fun of Halloween and that of my neighbor.

My husband asked me if the whole reason I insisted on doing Halloween in our neighborhood was because I wanted to make it up to our neighbor. I told him “No.” But, honestly, I did want to make it up to her. It felt so good to let her do something she’s wanted for years to do again. I also wanted to do it out of our effort to make our neighborhood a community. My kids visited neighbors who had been there for decades, those who were young college students there for a year a two, the few of those we know with kids and those we have had the privilege to get to know the past year. There were more lights turned off than there were in my sister-in-law’s neighborhood. But our kids had fun letting all the neighbors see their costumes and I felt good that we were making an effort in our own neighborhood.