Who is My Neighbor and Other Conundrums

How do you love your neighbor as yourself?

What does it mean if your neighbor doesn’t want love?

My neighbors and I ran into this conundrum long ago while living in military housing.

We lived on the corner of a two-car wide asphalt street without sidewalks, gutters or anything else demarking where your yard ended and the street began.

Particularly when cars parked on the verge, the curve was blind.

Four children under four years-old lived in five houses on that curve. We watched them vigilantly and all of us had yanked one of the kids back from being hit on several occasions.

All except one mother, whom we rarely saw.

Military families in places far from home generally are friendly and help one another.

In this spot, we socialized outside and a group of us pushed strollers around the neighborhood an hour every morning after the big kids caught the bus for school.

We knew each other, some of our spouses worked together, and it was a good, neighborhood-watch kind of community.

When the houses turned over, we showed up on the door step with cookies and introduced ourselves to the new neighbors.

We were always pleased to see another potential playmate and encouraged the children to play together–under our watchful eye.

All except one mother, whom we rarely saw.

This would not have been a problem–we know about the fishbowl life of military housing and would leave someone alone if they didn’t want to socialize–except she had a three year-old, whose name escapes me now.

Let’s call him Steve.

Steve’s dad was a friendly guy, happy to greet us when he was home, often playing with Steve.

Mom? We saw her escort the boy to the car when they went to the gym. She was gorgeous and fit. I don’t remember her name either.

We didn’t see her much.

Steve ran out of the house and across the street frequently. It seemed like his mother let him out to play and didn’t pay attention. We who lived on the corner, though, did.

We had to.

Steve ran into the street all the time.

Cars missed him by inches more than once.

One  neighbor went to the beautiful woman’s door and pointed out  how Steve wandered and several times cars had  nearly hit him.

She shrugged.

One Christmas day, she let him out to play and he spent the entire day at my house, joining my family’s celebration.

We knew Steve’s dad was home, but couldn’t figure out why a couple would let a three year-old spend Christmas day with neighbors.

Were we this little boy’s keepers? Click to Tweet

We lived on a blind curve. We had to be.

How to protect him?

Since we seldom saw the mother, the three other mothers decided we needed to protect Steve.

We put up cones and signs asking drivers to slow down coming around that corner. The neighbors asked for a speed bump (“No deal,” the Navy said).

Since we knew most of the people in housing, we asked them please to slow down.

A woman who drove a Volvo, however, didn’t seem to get the message.

One day in irritation (the posted speed limit was 10 mph, by the way), one of us (maybe me?) threw a towel at her car to make her slow down.

She slammed on the brakes, glared at us, and went on.

We felt badly about that, but Steve needed protection.

Eventually the glamorous mother we only saw when she got into her glamorous car, put Steve in preschool and we didn’t have to worry about him except on weekends.

Dad was usually home then, and Steve was much safer. We breathed a sigh of relief. We’d succeeded as neighbors.

The woman in the Volvo

Bible Study started up shortly thereafter. I posted notices on the bulletin board to meet at the community center.

We three corner wives and another half-dozen women brought our children  to play while we looked at Scripture. But that day, we had a new member.

A woman in a Volvo drove up.

Steve’s next door neighbor turned to me with wide eyes. “It’s her!”

The Volvo woman got out of the car, recognized me, put back her shoulders, grabbed her Bible, and walked in my direction.

Could I pretend I didn’t know her?

When she reached me, I opened my mouth: “The thing is, a little boy lives on that corner and his mother never watches him. We’ve been scared to death.”

“I’m an ER nurse, I’d never hit a child.”

We shook hands and welcomed her to the Bible study.

I’ve got the Bible she gave me sitting beside me right now.

Who was my neighbor? And how did I love her? Click to Tweet

What would you have done in this situation?