Bridging differences across a chain link fence

Margo

Just after I turned five when my family moved from Southeast Michigan to Denver, Colorado, I met my next-door neighbor, Margo, through the chain link fence in our respective back yards. The first words I remember her saying were “I hope you’re not Catholic. We hate Catholics.” We were, and I told her so. Margo and I became best friends anyway.

Margo was my first friend who was not a relative or a child of my parents’ friends. She was my friend. Because she was three years older, Margo could stay out later than I could. Soon after I’d get into bed, I’d hear a knock on my windowpane. I knew it was her, even the first time she did it—I just knew it was the kind of thing she would do. To not wake up my brother who slept across the room, I’d slip out of bed and crack the bedroom window. Margo and I talked about whatever came to mind, trying not to laugh too loudly so we didn’t wake anybody up. It all seemed very grown-up.

My family lived in Denver for only two years. When we drove away for the last time, I waved to Margo from the back window of the car, and she waved back from the sidewalk in front of her house. I tried hard not to cry, but it made me sad to know I was making her sad, so after a few waves, I settled down into the back seat and hugged my teddy bear, Timmy, until we were out of Denver and all I could see were the wide-open prairies.

Margo and I sent letters to each other throughout elementary school and occasionally beyond. I don’t remember what we wrote to each other, but I do remember that each time I got a letter I recalled how special it made me feel when she knocked on my window, and I wished she still could. We didn’t see each other again for forty years.

Margo sent me her high school graduation photo many years after I had moved away.

When we finally reconnected, we shared childhood stories that showed me that everything is not always as it seems. Although I believed she snuck out just because she wanted to see me, I learned that running away from an unpleasant home life supplied much more of her motivation. In hearing this, I was glad she felt like she had a safe place to go, at least for the couple of years I was there to open my window.

Our unlikely friendship showed me at an early age that hatred is taught. Margo was taught to hate Catholics, but she learned, as I did, that hatred can be hard to maintain once you get to know the person you’re supposed to hate. I left Denver knowing I could be a friend to someone who didn’t know she could be or would want to be a friend to me. That lesson was the first of many in my ongoing understanding of how to bridge cultural differences. I hope it was for Margo too.

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Being trusted makes a person trustworthy