Please note that Lindsey has given me permission to write about this incident. Personal identifiers in this post have been changed because the situation has been resolved amicably.
“Mom, it’s freedom of speech,” Lindsey said, explaining that the neighbor man put a sign in his flowerbed that said: Lindsey keep out!! “But it’s soooo embarrassing!”
“That’s not freedom of speech, Linds,” I said, realizing I’d be embarrassed too. “That’s bullying, and I’m coming over.”
“But I don’t wanna make that man mad…” my thirty-five-year-old started to say. Before she finished her sentence, I’d already pushed end, stuck the phone back in the power base, and was heading out the garage door.
I drove to the triplex where Lindsey lives and walked around to the rear of her unit. Sure enough, a computer-generated sign had been created, then laminated and attached to a wooden picket, and pounded into the barren flowerbed.
My first reaction? To pull that sign from the ground and hurl it across the grass. But that didn’t seem very civil. Besides, Lindsey has to continue living there, and the last thing I wanted was to make things worse for my daughter.
I’ll just go over and ask the neighbor to remove it, I thought. “Oh yeah,” I said out loud, recalling the very first conversation I’d had with the neighbor. That might be a problem.
Several months ago, on the day that Lindsey was moving into the middle unit of a lovely triplex, the neighbor ambled out of his apartment and said, “I value my privacy. I stay up most of the night and sleep much of the day. I don’t like people knocking on my door.” He stroked his long, gray beard. “Well, unless it’s an emergency.”
I nodded, a little shocked that our very first encounter contained so many demands. On the other hand, if more people made their wishes clear, it certainly would be a lot easier to be better neighbors.
“I’ll be sure and tell my daughter,” I said, wondering if he liked people at all.
Lindsey is a friendly girl. She likes to talk. I’m afraid she comes by this trait naturally—she got it from her mother. She’s nice; she’s thoughtful. She’ll do almost anything for anyone, even if she does it on accident. And in a way, that’s exactly what happened next…
Shortly after she moved in the groundskeeper mentioned that each renter (if possible) should keep the flowerbeds around his or her unit weed-free. Lindsey changed into her “play clothes”—as she calls them—and walked outside to pull weeds.
The next time I came to visit, Lindsey marched me around, pointing a tremoring finger in the direction of the borders. “I pulled all the weeds in the front,” she said, a huge grin on her face. The flowerbeds were pulled cleaned—there wasn’t a living thing left—just dirt. We walked around back and I immediately realized Lindsey had weeded beyond the boundary of her apartment.
“Your place stops here, Linds,” I said. In this situation, because the units were all connected, I figured Lindsey would have difficulty visualizing where one unit ended and the next one began. “See the window. You don’t go there. That’s his place.”
Lindsey put her hands on her hips. “You don’t know what you’re talkin’ ‘bout, Mom,” my girl said. “This is all mine.”
I immediately realized we might have a communication breakdown. In addition to dealing with essential tremors, my daughter also has a short in her neurological system. Because of this short, sometimes I have to explain and re-explain things five, eight, maybe even twelve times before she truly hears them, understands them, even believes them. It’s frustrating for me, but I try to put myself in Lindsey’s shoes. It must get old for her too, feeling like everyone around her sounds like a broken record.
By the time I left her apartment though, I thought she understood.
Apparently not. Lindsey pulled more weeds outside of her designated area, so the groundskeeper showed the boundaries to Lindsey. Then complex manager and the neighbor man explained the boundaries to Lindsey too. Even my husband, who Lindsey idolizes, reviewed the boundaries with her.
But somewhere in between all the explanations, a homemade computer sign showed up in the flowerbed. I’m almost certain (because several other people confirmed this to be true) that Lindsey brought other neighbors in to discuss the property lines, trying to prove herself right even though everyone else had said she was wrong. It’s the way my daughter works, the way she processes (or doesn’t process) confusing situations.
Yet as soon as I saw the laminated, computer-generated sign, I walked around the corner yard to the neighbor’s door and raised my hand to knock. Another computer-generated sign was tacked to the front of his door explaining the same rules I was told the first day. Late sleeper, values privacy, don’t knock unless an emergency. Was this an emergency? I wasn’t sure, so instead of knocking, I lingered in the common garden area for a while, hoping the man with the long, gray beard would come outside so we could have a short little chat. But that didn’t happen either.
The next morning I called the property manager and told her I was uncomfortable with the sign and I’d like to talk to the man who lives in the unit next door. “But with that darn warning taped to the door, I was afraid to knock,” I said, twisting and untwisting a strand of hair around my finger.
The manager agreed to arrange a meeting, and a few hours later, Lindsey, the man with the beard, the manager, and I were all sitting around a table talking.
“I feel the sign borders on bullying,” I said, immediately wishing I would not have started the conversation in such a direct manner. It felt a little too abrupt for my style. Lindsey’s eyes grew wide and the neighbor’s hands flew up in the air.
“How can that be bullying when it’s in my own private yard?” he said, a mixture of anger and irritation became his voice.
The place they live is actually a complex with multiple buildings and lots of common areas. The renters can use and care for the flowerbeds around their units—but are any of the outdoor spaces really considered private?
“Well, ” I said. “It has Lindsey’s name on it. If you’d just written ‘Keep Out’,” I wouldn’t care.”
“But I only want Lindsey to keep out. She’s the one who keeps coming over and talking loud,” he said. “Right outside my window.”
Lindsey does have a loud voice, and we are currently working on that with her. But I didn’t want to be distracted from the real issue: The sign.
Before I could say another word, the man with the long, gray beard said, “I’ll take it down. It’ll be gone this afternoon.”
And it was.
My first book will be coming out September 26, 2017. If you are interested in learning more about Loving Lindsey: Raising a Daughter with Special Needs, please click here.
