The Ladies

Around the age of 5, I got my first bike. It was white and pink with Minnie Mouse all over it — it was a real beaut. I rode that bike up and down my parent’s street; up the hill, down the hill, training wheels and all. Bike rides were a big part of my family’s culture so getting my own bike was a big deal. Getting my first bike was arguably a bigger deal than getting my first car.

Down the street from my house lived an older woman and her husband. I would whiz by her pink home on my new bike day after day. Both hard of hearing, her in a wheelchair, him with a cain, they stayed married until his passing; I imagine after a long, long life together. I remember him a kind spirit, gentle and quiet. I, sometimes along with my mother, would visit them in the afternoon.

In the afternoons my next door neighbor, also an older woman, would sit outside the pink house with the woman who lived inside. They would visit for hours as the afternoon sun began to set, and occasionally I would join them. Around 5 or so every night I would peak my head outside to see if they were there, waiting (I thought) for me. When I saw the two of them, I would ask mom and then ride my new Minnie Mouse bike down to their place. 

I would show up and say hello. They would compliment my new bike or the clothes I had on, and we’d just chat about the day. I befriended these older women, whom I lovingly called “my ladies,” but more strikingly, they befriended me, a little 5 year old girl. They would talk and let me listen, and vice versa. I would tell them about my day and going to the pool and riding my bike and they would laugh and love on me. They watched and worried as I flew down our big hill on my bike, they talked with my parents, but mostly just let me in to their afternoons together. When someone yelled down the street, the way we did in neighborhoods back in the 90’s to call everyone home, I would say goodbye and ride home.

They were my friends, but they were my protectors, and my champions too. One afternoon, I was visiting with one of the women. As we chatted, a man started circling the neighborhood. Just a teenage punk — I know that now. But at the time, she sent me home and said she was going to be okay just locking her doors behind her. I pedaled home as fast as my 5 year old legs would carry me, and told my mom and dad. They made sure everything was okay, you know, in the way parents do, and I never thought much else of it. 

When I graduated from kindergarten, one of them gave me a card with a cat made out of felt on the front to congratulate me. When the other travelled, she would write me postcards from exotic places like Hawaii. They took joy in my small accomplishments, like losing my training wheels and teeth. Had they lived long enough, I know they would have taken joy in my bigger accomplishments too; but that’s okay. To a little kid, having your dad take your training wheels off your bike is a pretty big accomplishment.

Eventually my neighbor would move, and the lady in the pink house passed away. My mom went to her funeral — I think for me. I was too little to really understand. Maybe I understood it more than people thought I did. I was sad when they left, but neither of them never really left, I guess. As Anne of Green Gables would say, “Good friends are always together in spirit.” And maybe that’s true, maybe even after death parts us.

Years after I grew out of my Minnie Mouse bike, I would still ride by the pink house and remember those lazy summer evenings spent talking with the two of them. I sometimes wished they’d be sitting out so I could have asked more questions and gotten to know about their lives a little bit more: how they found love and if they had kids, where they grew up and what they liked to do. I wish I could have asked why they let me stay. People come and go in life in different seasons. Perhaps my childhood was the season in which I needed them.

I can’t remember the exact day when I met these ladies, or what went through my 5 year old brain to impose myself on these women night after night. In some ways, it was beautiful, these woman loving on a young child. I loved my ladies, and they loved me back. I don’t know how I wormed my way into the driveway night after night, and I don’t know why they let me, but for all of the reasons that are still a mystery to me, I always felt at home sitting in that driveway as the warmth of the sun faded into evening.