Mr. and Mrs. Pearson

Recently I have been thinking about the neighborhood I grew up in and being reminded of what a little community it was.  I have many good memories of that neighborhood, Fairway Drive.  I guess it was called Fairway Drive because the neighborhood, Southwood, bordered a big golf course.  I don't know.  None of the other street names were golf related.  Anyway, Mr. and Mrs. Pearson lived just about right across the street from our house.  At the time of my memories of them I must have been between about 6-9  years old, something like that.  They, of course, seemed ancient to my young self, but were likely in their 60's. (the decade I am now in, but not to put too fine a point to it..) Anyway, somehow, I got into the habit of going to their house regularly.  They taught me to play Scrabble, at least at the level I was capable of playing.  If I was 6 years old when I started, it must have been like 2 letter words and stuff like that.  Mr. Pearson was in a wheelchair.  I have no recollection of why he was in a wheelchair.  I vaguely recall the word "stroke" being part of the discussion.  Mr. Pearson was from Sweden, so spoke English with a lovely accent.  They kind of let me have the run of the house when I was there.  One of my fondest memories of being with them was that they had a bedroom that they used kind of as a library.  I used to go in there and poke around looking at books and I don't know what all.  Well, they would keep big giant Hersey bars in that room and I would sneak a piece or two or three every time I went into that room, thinking that I was really getting away with something, I suppose.  They had a back porch with one of those green plastic wavy roofs that were kind of common back then for porches.  It gave the porch a kind of other worldly color and I loved being out there.  Sometimes we would go sit on the porch and hang out just for a change of scenery I suppose.The porch was often warmer than it was outside, so it felt cozy and nice.  Where I grew up, in South San Francisco, CA, it was often damp and foggy and dreary, so that porch offered warmth and coziness for us.  Mrs. Pearson would give me coffee in tiny cups with a big dollop of evaporated milk.  I will never smell or taste evaporated milk without thinking of her and Mr. Pearson.  Her influence, along with my Great Aunt Jean's, was what got me going on coffee at a very young age.  She told me stories of making bathtub gin in San Francisco during the prohibition days. She shared memories with me that made me think she was quite the party girl in her day.  We were good friends.

Well, this is where the memory gets sad and a little murky for me.  One day I went over to their house as normal and went to knock on the back door.  I think I would usually knock on the door and then just walk in.  When I went to do that, there was obviously something leaning against the door so I couldn't get the door open.  Then I heard a kind of moan and unintelligible talking.  It sounded like Mr. Pearson.  I was immediately overtaken by a fear so deep and visceral that I froze up and just ran away.  I was so frightened that I didn't tell anyone, not my parents, not anyone.  In fact I never told anyone this part of the story until years later, because I felt such a deep sense of shame that I didn't do anything.  Well, it turned out that Mrs. Pearson had dropped dead and apparently, Mr. Pearson had tried to get to the door to get help or something and fallen out of his wheel chair against the door.  They were discovered by a neighbor sometime after my encounter at the back door.  Mrs. Pearson was dead and Mr. Pearson may have had another stroke and was taken to a nursing home.  I never knew what happened to him after that.  Or I don't remember.  I still carry some of the shame with me that I was too frightened to even say anything to anyone.  It was the childhood magical thinking perhaps that if I don't say anything or think about it, it really isn't happening.  But my young heart was broken. And has never been fully repaired from the loss of them and from my unintended involvement in their last moments as a couple.  But I am grateful to them for their kindness and care of me at that tender age.  I know they would forgive me for my fear and I hope that some day I am fully able to forgive myself.