Walking our dog last week, I came upon an elderly man changing a flat tyre.

Crouched in the gutter, midday sun scorching down, I was moved to ask: “Are you alright? Do you need a hand?”

He turned toward me with a wary, bothered glance. And relaxed.

“Yes. I’m recovering from an operation.”

A surprisingly immediate and frank admission.

So I hunkered down in his place, jacked up the car and changed the tyre.

As I worked he told me he’d had surgery 4 weeks earlier. That he’d visited his doctor for another matter and been diagnosed with an abdominal aortic aneurysm (AAA).

He lifted his shirt and showed me the raw scar up his torso.

Surprised again. I told him that four years earlier my father died of a ruptured AAA, alone and undiagnosed.

Tyre changed, he asked if I lived locally. “Yes. Down the street. The house with all the piano music.”

Later in the evening my wife told me a man had knocked at the front door.

He said I’d helped him earlier and he wanted to leave me a gift.

She passed me a bottle in a brown paper bag.

A long-neck of Tooheys Old.

My dads beer.