In early winter, two girls at the same school died within 5 days of each other. I was on the phone at home talking with a teacher after the second loss, pacing the perimeter of my house. Glancing out the back window, I saw that the heavy solid fence between my yard and my neighbors was collapsed against their house
I went out in the darkening evening to talk to my neighbors. There was no answer to my knocking. So I went home and wrote a note to stick on their door.
Later on my neighbor called. He said it had fallen over on my house a few days before during a night of brutal winds. They were worried it had damaged my house so lifted and pushed it over to their side. I had been out of town and for days after my return, I didn’t notice.
He had arranged for it to be repaired and reinforced so it would be sturdy and not fall over in the future.
At school the next day, though we were instructed not to talk with students about one of the deaths and how it happened, every time our eyes met, I felt we were trying to repair and reinforce. Trying to be sturdy.