He did not start out as a friend.
I will call him B. Just that. B.
We began as next door neighbors that could barely stand the sight of each other, until we learned the other's name and then we could barely stand the mention of the name...You get the point. I have always regretted that time and so did he. It is in the past and we mended things up really well.
So well we - his family and mine- became really close friends.
And the REAL mending came from a small scared boy and a scraggly garden.
The boy was B's soon to be step son that had seen some really rough things in his very young life.
And my scraggly garden was an attempt at sanity in a way too crazy world that my life had become.
I will call the boy E. Just that. E.
B took E's mom and her two small children in and loved them with all he had. He changed their world. He made horrible things not so horrible, and then not so bad, and then just down right great. I did not know this then.
E. apparently got a new bike for his birthday and thought he could ride it better than he actually could. Of course while I was out front tending to my hostas at dusk he wiped out on the rock strewn sidewalk just a foot from where I stood. Blood covered his shirt and legs. His hands looked like ground hamburger. He was in shock and then when I gently touched his shoulder and made to help him up it took him a minute to register who was touching him. He looked up and a mask of horror and abject fear came over him.
I instantly knew what was happening.
He had been told that I was a bad lady and he needed to stay far far away from our house.
I knew that he needed me to NOT touch him. I knew he needed to hear a soft loving voice as though I were his mom, not the hateful lady next door that just may eat him.
He caught his breath and stood up backing away from me. I looked him in the eye, smiled, and sat down in the dirt and gravel in the alley. I asked him if he was OK.
I let him tower over me and have the upper hand.
I told him he had a neat bike and he rode it really brave like a dare devil.
He smiled in spite of himself for a second, just a second, and then tore down the sidewalk back to his front porch.
I did not even get mad at his parents. All I knew was that together his family and mine had created an atmosphere where he did not feel safe as long as he saw ANYONE outside our house. I cried for him. Not me, him. I did not ever want a child to live in fear because of me.
My daughter was not even a year old and I did not want these children living in fear and our neighbors having to walk on egg shells around BOTH families.
But, I hadn't a clue what to do.
As these things always are it was very complicated. So many folks were mad at so many others. We had even had to go to court and town counsel meetings to oppose each other with complaints.
It was messy.
And as I found out it had been messy for his family and my husband's family many years ago when they had lived next door to each other back in the 1960's.
sigh.... I had a lot of cards stacked against me.
It was early spring when E. wrecked his bike. Along about the second week of summer vacation from school I found E. in my back yard one afternoon as my daughter napped.
He was standing there looking at my daughter's out side toys and my gardening tools.
I had made a maze-like pathway through my garden that year, trying new techniques and old time ways. At the end closest to his back yard my garden had two pole bean tee pees. I had built them from fallen branches and jute twine. Right then the last of the early peas had still clung to the poles and made a slight screen.
I knew that when the beans would grow my daughter and I would have a secret garden in which to read books and play in the shade.
E. grabbed something off the vine, shoved it in his mouth and ran behind their garage. I moved closer and could hear him gagging on what he had picked. He did not see me, but stayed behind the garage. He did not like the dried up pea pod he had stuffed into his mouth.
Without thinking I went to his front porch and knocked on the front door. No one answered. I thought as much. I just wanted to let his mother know he had tried one of the dried peas and he should be OK. I did not use any pesticides because my daughter tried to eat everything she could too.
I also wanted her to know if he wanted to use the football and toss it around or the frisbee or the basketball hoop that was fine. I just did not want kids in the yard when I wasn't home because I wanted to make sure they were safe.
Later that week E. was back. This time he wanted to play with my daughter. She was learning to walk and he wanted to hold her hands and walk the path through my garden. I sat in the weeds I was pulling and said Sure.
For the first time I had seen this little guy he had a real smile on his face. He enjoyed and loved something. I thanked God. Somehow, I knew E. needed this time and so did I.
Every day afterward E. came over when we were outside.
After about two weeks of this his mother came looking for him one evening after dinner.
I will call her T. Just that. T.
She was yelling his name and looking frantic. I came over running to her and told her he was in the bean tee pee reading to my daughter.
I told her I hoped he was not in trouble, but I had asked him if he had permission to be over here. He had said yes.
T said yes, it was fine. She was afraid he had gone down to the river to fish with his little pole after she had told him not to. She was just happy to see him safe.
I invited her to come see.
My garden was NOT a great landscaping feat of French designers. It was just what I thought Peter Rabbit would have grazed in, driving Mr. McGregor mad.
T. sat down hard in the grass and spread her hands throughout. She started crying. Small tears that just slid down her face.
"It is so beautiful," she said.
"My Mom has a garden that is even better than THIS! She can grow ANYTHING!" E. bragged on his mom.
She smiled and wiped her eyes and said "HAD. I HAD a garden like this once."
From there we started sharing our stories of our gardens, our lives, our struggles.
After that E. brought his sister too.
I will call her D. Just that. D.
She was older and wanted to appear above all this mundane stuff.
But soon she was reading books in the bean tee pee too.
Other kids came into the yard one by one more and more every day.
My garden was somewhat a joke to the old Rush County farmers.
Until the drought and my garden did just fine although I rarely watered it.
THEN they started asking me questions. How? Why? When? All the important things.
Then all the kids wanted to have a contest. Who could grow the most? Then the dads wanted to have a contest. Who could grow the hottest peppers? Then the moms wanted to have a contest. Who could preserve the most?
We realized we had become a nice little community out at the cross roads in the middle of a bunch of corn fields.
Then we all became friends.
Then we wanted to help others.
And then we did.
That was how B. had put it one day when I asked him how he could stand this one guy that just used him and used him over and over. "Well, we just shared things til we were friends and we just ARE."
A great many people have lost a good friend today.
God bless B. and T. and D. and E.
-Suzanna
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