When my husband, Paul, and I bought our first home, we couldn’t have asked for nicer next-door neighbors than Becky and Greg and their two boys. Within days of our moving in that February, they brought over a plate of cookies to welcome us to the neighborhood.
That spring I began to garden, and I got to know Becky through casual conversations struck as we worked outside. She was older than I was, and we were very different, but we made each other laugh, and it was impossible to not like Becky.
My son, Christopher, was just a baby when we moved in, but as soon as he began to walk, Becky told me she had talked with Greg, and they were going to be on the lookout for Christopher when pulling into or backing out of their driveway. I already knew Becky was a kind lady, but this seemed incredibly so. Of course, it was in her interest to avoid running over my boy, but it was her attitude that struck me.
Whereas I might have been annoyed at the thought of this constance vigilance, she didn’t seem to mind a bit. She was genuinely concerned about Christopher’s safety and waved away my thanks. It was nothing, just what neighbors do.
But I was so thankful. We were at the beginning of a long and exhausting journey diagnosing a variety of Christopher’s disabilities. He was a late walker — taking his first steps at 16 months — but once he started, he went straight to running and didn’t stop for years.
The summer he was 2 going on 3 years old, I spent the majority of each of my days chasing him around our house — literally. When the baby, my daughter Lydia, was napping, I tried to garden.
I kept Christopher right beside me with his own little tools, but if I looked down for a second he was off. As soon as I noticed, I would guess which way he went and run after him. He was usually enough ahead of me to be turning a corner just before I turned the one behind, so he was always out of sight, a scenario like a horrific version of Tom and Jerry. He had a hearing loss, but I frantically shouted his name until I caught him.
