For 16 years we have lived in the same house in a wonderful suburb where all the local people are very friendly. Most of us moved into the area about the same time as it was a new housing development. We got on very well with the lovely couple next door and their young children were born about the same times as ours. They had a boy and a girl and we had a girl first and then a boy.
I must say at the outset that we all got on so well it was nothing for us to go to each other's homes for parties and social events and we were always there to help one another should there be any trouble. Well disaster struck next door to us when my best friend Mary was killed in a motor accident by a drunken driver just 9 years ago. She would have been 37 this week if she had lived and her husband John is now 41 with John Jr. just turned 18 and Pamela just 15. They had married at 18 and were a very close family which was torn apart on Mary's death. It seemed that nothing we could do would ever help them with their grief.
John Jr. was probably the worst affected of the family - he was very close to his mother and without her he became lost very quickly. My husband Ted and I spent a lot of time with the three of them and we did our best to cheer them up but although they were very grateful for our efforts they just couldn't shake their grief.
I can remember vividly sitting in their lounge room, surrounded by photographs of Mary and the family, listening to Pamela sobbing quietly and John Jr. just sitting and staring out the window as if hoping his mother would suddenly appear. After being with them for several hours and this was only days after they had buried their mother I took John Jr. into my arms and hugged him. I told him I could never replace his mother but I would always be there for him no matter what it was he wanted! John Jr. thanked me and hugged me tightly and cried on my blouse - he was totally devastated.
Over the next few years they gradually came out of their grief but they were a very close family and they couldn't seem to make friends with others even other children at school seemed unable to get close to them. John senior was perhaps the first to recover and he slowly tried to get around and make friends but he was really unable to do very much despite all of our efforts. We certainly didn't try to match him up with any eligible females - it was obviously too soon for that.
Pamela was a frequent visitor to our home - she was always asking for help with clothing decisions, help with homework and generally I suppose I came close to being her mother. John Jr. on the other hand was reluctant to ask for help preferring to muddle along and work alone. He was always very polite and he would certainly come and visit us regularly but he never asked for help.
My own children, Sonya and Phillip, did their level best to try to help the family particularly the two children but they weren't very successful.
The story I want to relate to you happened only about a month ago. John Jr. had had his 18th birthday and suddenly he seemed to have grown up. He dressed a bit better than he had earlier and he was extremely polite but he just seemed more grown up. One Tuesday morning while my husband Ted was at work and our two children were at school, John Jr. came over to our place and knocked politely on the back door as he usually did. We had a gate between the two houses and we always used the back door when visiting. When I went to the door he was standing there looking terribly embarrassed and he had his head hung down on his chest. He asked politely if he could come in and talk to me about a problem. Of course I invited him inside and we went into the lounge room. He explained he had stayed away from school today because he wanted to talk with me. He was such a good boy I was surprised he would stay away from school because he could have talked to me after school. I realized suddenly he would probably want to talk to me privately when the others weren't around.
I asked him if he would like a cold drink and when he said he would I left him and got the drinks from the kitchen. When I returned and handed him his lemonade I could see his hands were shaking. I guessed he was either very upset about something or very embarrassed and I didn't know which. He took huge gulps of his lemonade mainly I think to hide how he felt. I looked at him while he was silent and realized he had grown into a very good looking young man and I think he had grown several inches in the last year.
At last he gathered his thoughts and eventually placed his drink on the table and stammered his thoughts. "Mrs. Dixon, I hope you will recall when my mother died that you said you would be prepared to do anything for me that I needed. Well, Mrs. Dixon, you probably know that although I love my father dearly I just cannot approach him about personal matters because he just won't talk to me at all. I have missed my school today because I want to talk to you about a very delicate matter and I hope you will help me as you promised!"