One of our neighbours, a senior, lives with her daughter, who experienced a brain injury as a child. The injury left the younger woman, I’ll call Janet, with serious deficits. Janet runs in her fenced back yard every day, with her therapy dog. Periodically though, she finds her way out of the yard. This happened this past weekend, when the high winds blew down a section of the fence.
Janet loves running, so when she can has an opportunity to run in a larger area, she does. My husband and I saw her running down our street which she doesn’t normally do. We phoned her mother, who hadn’t seen Janet leave the yard. We offered to look for her and help her back to her house.
By the time we donned winter gear, there was no sign of Janet. We headed down the street, one on either side. The wind was too high for our voices to be heard calling her name. The cold was numbing!
Then we spotted her, on a neighbour’s door step, knocking on the door. There were three cars in the driveway and we could see someone inside through the door. We both went to the doorstep and spoke to Janet, who knows us and offered to take her home, just a few houses away.
Janet was cold which was why she was knocking on the door. She does not recognize the area though it is close to her house. I gave her my mitts and linked into her. She wanted to continue her run so she did but fell down. Luckily, Janet was wearing a helmet for protection.
We walked her home and my husband and I patched the fence so Janet could enjoy the yard safely again. Then we headed out to our daughter’s house but as we drove out of our sub-division, the local police were headed in there, to look for Janet we suspected. This always happens if she runs on the road.
This incident greatly saddened my husband and I for two reasons. How can we live in this small area and not know our neighbours well enough to know Janet and her situation a few meters away? I guess this is what happens when we live in a society where people drive into their garages and never take the time to speak to the people next door or a few doors away.
Secondly, nobody came to the door of that house for Janet when she knocked nor for my husband and I as we stood there helping her. They saw us. The door stayed close. What is wrong with people? Were we considered a threat? Did they not want to get involved?
If they had opened the door and spoken to her, Janet would not have been able to tell them much but they could have kept her warm while they called the police. I cannot believe one’s first instinct is to call police and not try to help.
We don’t live in a big city. Guns are not an issue here and anyone who sees Janet would never think that anyway. Yet on a bitterly cold day, people would let her freeze rather than take a chance. It was forty-five minutes before the police came to the area. Where would Janet have been by that time and in what condition?
There was a time when neighours looked out for each other, helped each other, knew each other, were friends. This is not the case in this neighbourhood. However, you don’t have to be someone’s friend to help her on a cold day, or help a vulnerable person. This is a sad comment on our neighbourhood and I can only hope it doesn’t reflect our community in general.
On another note: For several days now I have been unable to comment on the blogs I follow. Neither am I able to respond to your comments on my blog. I miss these features!
21 comments:
Oh, Marie, this touches my heart in so many ways. I have an autistic granddaughter and it can be so frightening to see how she is often treated although she wouldn't hurt a fly. Thank God that you and your husband were there for her but I wonder why her therapy dog could not help. Usually they are trained to restrain such actions. But I agree completely that your neighbors hiding behind their door are despicable.
It's the defensive posture we have adopted as the world has become more scary. I'm glad you were able to help Janet, but it's very sad to hear of this situation. Have you tried using another browser and see if the problem remains? I had to do that a few times. Now I keep three browsers open on my laptop for various reasons. I use Chrome, Firefox, and Safari. Hope this helps. :-)
I think if they knew her situation they should have opened the door. If they did not know her well they might have feared her pushing them down or some thing. We do need to know each other much better and our isolationist society is what causes cultural misunderstandings. I changed my blogs to not allow Google+ users as it interfered with commenters and myself in replying. Google+ is dead anyway. Maybe that is the reason?
Hi Marie.....I read this and felt sad for a bit but then remembered that there are people like YOU all over the place. That neighbor, they are the one living in deficit, the one cowering at the window, probably more scared than anything else. Sad really, because, in my view, community is why we are put here. I am glad you were there. I am glad you care.
You were helping, which is very important.
Tabor's idea about Google+ might be key- I'll have to check my own settings to see if that's an issue for commenting, as one of my readers has mentioned having difficulties in that respect lately.
Another blogger noted that she was using Firefox to read blogs, and that was being problematic.
It seems our president is souring the world. I'm glad Marie was helped.
Going to comment first on what you say at the end of your post... having the same issue where I can’t respond on my own blog to comments and have found I have to use my iphone (like now) to comment to other folks blogs!
As for your neighbour, it is so sad when people don’t help. We have that here too, although I have to say that sone folks do step up. Recently we were driving home and saw a younger lady walking with an elderly lady. All traffic slowed. We also stopped and others to help. Turned out the elderly lady had dementia and was quite aggressive but we helped keep her off the road til the Police arrived. So sad to have seen her and can only hope she is ok now being cared for.
I am so very sorry to read this. And suspect (strongly suspect) it would be true here too.
Which is sad, and bad.
I am very, very glad that there ARE people like you and your husband. And need to remember that.
Thank goodness Janet and her mother have you as neighbours, so sad no one else helped. We now live in a cul-de-sac which does allow neighbours to talk to each other more. We also have weekly walks and a summer and winter get together. Last week one of our neighbours died suddenly and it was such a shock to us all. It is so different to where we previously lived. Sarah x
Bless her heart. The Mother must worry so. We had a little girl down the street who had similar problems. She would run and hide from Mother/Police. CPS took her in several times but would return her home. It was so sad. My niece is retarded and though she has two brothers who will be there should anything happen to my sister, I know it is very scary for my sister.
The world is becoming sadder by the day. I'm glad you helped, you can only show people how to act and then it's up to them. You are a good neighbor who cares. Maybe some day they'll be in a situation and have to knock on someone's door for help and remember that they didn't open theirs.
it must feel good to know you had such a positive impact on the outcome of this story. thank goodness you were there to help her. we live on a cul-de-sac, we know all of our neighbors, 6 homes on the street and we are all there for each other!
perhaps you and this event can bring the neighborhood together!!
I used to work with young people much like Janet so I'm well-aware of the problems they and their carers face. On the positive side in the 20-odd years I worked there I noticed a great improvement in the behaviour of other young people towards those with learning difficulties. We would often get teenagers coming over to chat or offer assistance and the youngsters working in Macdonalds and similar places were always extremely polite and helpful. I imagine this is because of the number of children integrated into the education system these days.
Yes, that was a sad situation. Too bad fear dominates us so.
Many people seem to be having Blogger problems. The only think I lost was email some time ago, and I have gotten used to that.
You helped her, and took her home. That's the important thing. But I'm sad that the people in the house didn't come to the door to see what was going on.
It really is a sad state of affairs Marie, thank heavens yourself and husband spotted Janet running by. I despair sometimes, whatever happened to kindness to our fellow human beings ✨
It is really sad but things in the world have changed so musch that trust is not what it used to be. We are lucky here in the country in France, I would not bat an eyelid about opening the door to anyone, but I would never have done it in South Africa. Mind you there they would have not got near the door as we lived behind a wall with electric fencing on top!!!!!! Also double electric gates! A totally different life. Take care and I am glad your neighbour's daughter got home safely. Diane
I am glad you were able to help your neighbor. It is a hard world we live in.
With regards to commenting. You are using Blogspot like I do for your blog. Something changed and I had the same problem. One of my readers suggested that I change my readers' commenting from "Embedded" - which is what your blog has now ... to "Pop Up Window." I did that and it helped greatly. You might give that a try.
A very unfortunate situation. She was lucky you helped. And this will not be the last time she runs away...
A very sobering experience indeed, Marie. The closeness of a community is completely dependent on the attitudes of those in it and whether they make the effort or not. Bless you for helping that neighbour. It takes a village (to alter the quote a bit) to properly look after everyone in a neighbourhood.
You and your husband sound like wonderful neighbors to have. I can see both sides of it; you definitely want to help someone who needs it, but you do have to be careful. I typically don't open the door to someone I don't know without talking to them through it first, but we've had a few issues in our neighborhood, unfortunately. Fortunately, though, we have a wonderful relationship with our next door neighbors. I'm glad you and your husband were able to get Janet home safely.
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