……over the edge

“There is only darkness here”,

….despite the fireworks, lasers, glittering games, immediately the Olympic flame was extinguished, the lights went out for 2 old friends. I live on a communal balcony and my neighbour one side passed away “very quickly at the end”, and then on the other side “well the doctor said it could be anytime” within 10 days of one another.

The lady  was here before my insertion 25 years ago, she had been here most of her life and was a wealth of information when I first got stuck into sorting this place out.  She was afraid to venture out after darkness  back then, because the lighting was dim and faulty. Which led to my first achievement, getting every single external light replaced and maintained regularly, with the help of the Tenants Assoc., the Councillors, the police, the fire brigade, a wonderful  MP and a local paper, (the power of a picture should never be dismissed). All because my dear neighbours who helped me when I was wandering, dislocated from this world and called the ambulance a couple of times,  who I always did my best to help, felt “there is only darkness here”. I could not have that.

 The 40 foot horse chestnut central in our forecourt was a sapling when she came here as a child.

My other neighbour lived on the other side about 12 years and always had a word, indeed a joke, always! I got to know his family very quickly as his wife was stalking them! On one occasion he came to me and asked if I would hide the children and not answer the door to her. He was trying to escape and keep his children safe in the shadows of “the darkness here”. The kids  are now two great people with good jobs, and are good friends to me, one recently married. Because of their vulnerability I have been part of the researching, sourcing, funding and endless interrupting and talking to  make their homes secure, with new impenetrable windows and doors, that any householder would be proud of . Hopefully, their lives brought into some sunlight and comfort before their return to the stars, atom by atom.

Their existence was intertwined with mine and was never negative and got me into what I was brought up to do, help others, although, I have gone about it a little differently than my  Salvationist family would prefer. I am happy to have known my neighbours and I am not filled with grief, for that belongs to the selfish who require their past one’s presence for themselves. Even if it is only to sit silently opposite them. Many  relatives have knocked on my door to “meet me”, goodness knows what they have been told?

My neighbours helped lighten this place with , through and for  me.

dwk