We moved into a new house when I turned fifteen. It needed some work and the neighborhood was just good enough for my mother, but it was a step up from renting. The house next door was a mess with a front yard that was over grown with some grass, but mostly weeds. The neighbor who lived directly across from that house had a perfectly kept front yard, and worked on it constantly. Perhaps it was then that I realized how unfair the world really was.

My new next door neighbor had a view of a perfect yard and the man who worked so hard on his saw the mess across from him everyday as he left for work. Our family had some difficulties and I had seen the inside of a divorce attorney’s office more than once at my tender age. I had few allusions about the world.

My parents were good people, but perhaps they just brought out the worst in each other now and then. Perhaps my neighbor sensed the issues in my family and she quickly became a good friend to me. She had broken her ankle when a rock was sent flying at her while she mowed her lawn and she vowed from her hospital bed that she would never mow her lawn again. It was obvious to everyone that she was a woman of her word.