Our Friends & Neighbours
Small ways the kindness of others supported our family’s hardest years.
I borrowed the title of this article from the Apple TV + series (it is very much worth watching) but it has nothing to do with what I’m writing about today.
Eight years ago, when we were house hunting, we viewed two houses on the same street on the same day.
We bought one of them.
Another family bought the other.
At the time, this felt entirely irrelevant information. A normal administrative detail from a period of life where we had a 7 week old baby & were surviving on coffee and adrenaline.
Then three years later, during the summer holidays, I met the woman who bought the other house at the local swimming pool.
At the time, I was mostly just trying to stop my children from drowning while privately spiralling about the fact I had recently discovered I was unexpectedly pregnant with our third baby.
We had just returned from visiting family in Connecticut where I found out.
I remember moving through those weeks feeling physically present but mentally somewhere else entirely. Every thought I had eventually looped back to: A third baby?
How?
Why?
Can we cope?
Will our family even survive this?
Will I survive this?
And for some completely unknown reason, while standing in the public pool in a damp swimsuit with two children demanding “look ant this!” every eleven seconds, I told this near-stranger everything.
This is deeply unlike me. I am not usually someone who emotionally unpacks my entire life story on someone I met that same day.
But something about her felt safe immediately. After that, our lives slowly overlapped more and more.
Her son started at the school my daughter was at. Then her daughter joined my son’s nursery. The kids became friends.
Then my third baby arrived the following March and absolutely humbled me as a human being.
He had silent reflux, refused to feed, and dropped weight in those early months before we finally understood what was happening.
At the same time, I still had two older children who needed lifts, snacks, emotional regulation, clean clothing and somebody to pretend Roblox conversations were intellectually stimulating.
It was a lot.
And during that season, this woman helped me more than she will probably ever fully understand.
She would invite my older two over to play in her garden.
Or for movie nights.
Or just to get them out of the house for a few hours while I battled a baby who easily went eight hours without fluids.
Sometimes she fed them too.
Honestly, some days she returned them cleaner and emotionally better regulated than when they left.
I appreciated it more than I can explain.
But eventually something else crept in.
Guilt.
Because at some point in adult life, many of us quietly absorb the idea that support only counts if it can be repaid equally.
And I couldn’t repay it equally.
Not even slightly.
I tried.
I really did.
At one point, when my baby was still tiny, I attempted to have all their two kids over at my house.
Which in hindsight was a wildly ambitious choice.
At one stage, amid the reflux screaming, snack negotiations, and trying to stop somebody launching themselves off furniture, I realised her son had somehow gone home without me noticing.
Not emotionally gone home.
Physically.
Left the house.
Honestly, it is a miracle I survived that period with any remaining brain function at all.
I remember speaking to her afterwards and basically saying:
“I am so grateful for everything you do for us, but I genuinely cannot safely reciprocate this at the moment.”
And do you know what she did?
She understood completely.
Then she kept inviting my children over anyway.
No awkwardness.
No score keeping.
No passive aggressive “you can repay me one day” energy.
Just generosity.
Over the years, I tried again occasionally.
But the logistics of a large age gap, toddler meltdowns, nap schedules and one child feeling deeply offended by the existence of the other children in his home meant it never really balanced out evenly - nowhere close.
Every time I explained this, she was fine with it.
No drama.
No guilt.
No withdrawing.
Just acceptance of what my capacity genuinely was during that season of life.
And I think that is one of the greatest gifts one mother can give another.
Not advice.
Not solutions.
Not performative offers of help.
Just: I see your limits and I won’t punish you for them.
What strikes me now is that she is not the only person who has done this for our family during this season of life.
My middle son’s best friend’s dad has done the same thing for years.
He has invited my son along to countless tennis and golf practice sessions, never once making things transactional or keeping tabs on whose turn it is.
Their family regularly invites him for playdates and dinner and every single time I apologise for the fact I currently find hosting playdates disproportionately difficult.
Particularly in this phase of life where my youngest child can turn on a level of emotional chaos that feels genuinely incompatible with polite social interaction.
Last Friday, for example, I had another child over while my toddler had missed his nap and spent large parts of the afternoon wailing from exhaustion.
I wrote about it on Notes because at this point humour is the only thing separating me from institutionalisation.
And yet despite this, despite me repeatedly explaining that I do not currently have equal capacity to reciprocate these things, people keep extending generosity anyway.
No guilt.
No weirdness.
No subtle social punishment.
Just understanding.
The older I get, the more I think this might be one of the purest forms of love adults can offer each other:
The ability to recognise when somebody is overloaded and support them without demanding they earn it back immediately.
This week our neighbour family moves away. And our summer will feel very different without them this year.
There are people who become part of the emotional infrastructure of your life without you fully realising it at the time.
People your nervous system associates with relief.
People who made hard years softer.
People who appeared during a season where you desperately needed community and somehow instinctively knew how to help without making you feel ashamed.
I keep thinking about the fact we almost never met at all.
Two houses.
Same street.
Same day.
Then three years later, a random conversation at a swimming pool changed the experience of motherhood for years afterwards.
I don’t know if I believe everything happens for a reason.
But I do think certain people arrive in your life at exactly the moment you are finally able to recognise them as the gift they are.
And one day, when my youngest is older and my own capacity has returned properly, I hope I get to become this kind of woman for somebody else.
Until Next Time…
Lou
Excellent writing!
Genuine selfless help is God's gift to the world.
Whenever you are able, pay it forward.
https://smilink53.substack.com/p/help-people-dealing-with-big-things
Loved this Louise! Heartfelt 😘 xx