When your grandmother dies, everyone knows what to do. Send a note, or at least express condolences. But when a neighbor dies, there isn't really any protocol, maybe because there are so many different kinds of neighbors: The ones you never see. The ones you never want to see. And the ones who become part of your life.

I live in a New York apartment building, supposedly anonymity central. But as I walk past the door of my neighbor who died last week, my heart does a weird little plop, and my eyes sting. She was 95, so you couldn't call it an untimely death. But with her went a piece of joy wrapped in neighborly obligation.

Lolita Llora Walters was born to immigrants from Spain, in 1921. I can tell you her whole life story because every other day or so, I would try to stop by her home, in part for fun and in part because the thought of her sitting there watching TV by herself made me queasy. Most of the times when I'd knock I was greeted by a cheery but exasperated, "Where have you been?"

Into the armchair next to hers I'd sink, in an apartment decorated in old lady classic: China plates in the breakfront, a cuckoo clock on the wall. As Lolita grew more and more housebound, I'd try to give a taste of the outside world. "Work was insane today," I'd say. Or, "I've just been making soup." Then we'd share everything from gossip to history. Here's a bit of the latter:

When Lolita was seven — that's 1928 — her older cousins were being taken by their parents to study at a convent in Quebec. Lolita joined them for the journey but when they got there, the cousins hated it. Not Lolita! She begged to stay. Thus was she educated by cloistered, French-speaking nuns until she was 17.

Summers and holidays she'd come back home to New York, so she remembers going to the movies with her parents. She saw "On the Good Ship, Lollipop" when it was a brand new hit, and so was its star, Shirley Temple. She attended the opening of Radio City Music Hall. When my family watched old movies on Netflix, Lolita would sometimes join us, because for her, Charlie Chaplin wasn't film history. He was the guy she grew up watching. "They don't make movies like that anymore," she'd say and she was right. Now the movies talk.

When Lolita graduated high school, she moved out to California and quickly got married. By age 20 she had her daughter, Linda — a little girl so pretty that Lolita's friend told her, "You should put her in the movies." That friend was Betty White.

Everything changed when Lolita's husband, a pilot, died in a car crash when Lolita was about 22. She moved back to New York to be near family and raised her daughter here.

I heard a lot about the daughter, including the fact, revealed to me very early on after we moved into the building in 2010, that she had died about 20 years ago. That meant Lolita had no immediate family, which made being able to tell stories about Linda in her high school years (bullied) or Linda at college (brilliant) or Linda's nursing career (a true calling, she worked with kids with cancer) even more urgent. Other moms could talk about what their kids or grandkids were up to. Lolita didn't have that luxury.

I couldn't take the place of her beloved daughter. I wasn't related. I wasn't always around. I didn't stay that long, most visits. But my mom is gone, and so was her child.

A neighbor dies and it's not like losing a grandmother.

But sometimes ... it sort of is.

Lenore Skenazy is author of the book and blog, "Free-Range Kids," and a keynote speaker at conferences, companies and schools. Her TV show, "World's Worst Mom" airs on the Discovery Life Channel. To find out more about Lenore Skenazy ([email protected]) and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.