“Good fences make good neighbours”.  A famous line from the poem “Mending Wall” by Robert Frost, which suggests that one should establish clear, respectful boundaries—physical or metaphorical—to foster healthy, peaceful relationships between neighbours.

I think you can see where we are going with this…

It all started on a late afternoon somewhere toward the end of 2019.  Jayden was just under 2 years old and enjoyed going for walks around the block in a little pushcart in the afternoons, and for some reason, Clint liked to hang around in his garage after work with a beer.  It took one friendly wave from Clint and he had Jayden in the bag.  In the days that followed, Jayden would insist basically every day “Oom hallo se”, which was super awkward for me, since I didn’t know the man at all.   This carried on for a good couple of weeks.

One day I was taking Jayden out for our customary little walk, when not only Clint, but also a friend was hanging around in the garage.  The friend then invited us in for a drink.  I thought Jayden would be ecstatic, but I will never forget the way he cautiously stepped over that line from the driveway into the garage – almost like he knew we were now “crossing a boundary”.  The conversation was quite stiff, with Lee asking me questions – it felt like a job interview.  We didn’t stay long.  Not long after that, we became friends on Facebook – and we started extending our awkward little chats to Messenger and not much later, Whatsapp.  One Friday afternoon, Jayden had gone to his Dad, and I sent him a message asking what he was doing. He replied “Just opened my first beer for the day, You?” and I said “Nothing.. Great Idea! You want to come have it here?” and he said “I can come for a quick one”…

Well it wasn’t quick… We sat outside listening to music and chatting and flirting for hours, which eventually led to me going for a late night swim across the road and our first kiss…

We enjoyed each other’s company and spent as much time together as we possibly could, which wasn’t always easy with the kids and different routines, but we made it.  On 1 September 2021 on a very windy pier in Umhlanga, sometime between dinner with our kids and family bingo, Clint went down on his knee and proposed.  Jayden yelled “What the heck?” and I must say I felt the same – had I known, I would’ve made an effort to dress up at least.

So back to our poem…

While sometimes used to justify separation, the poem actually explores the tension between maintaining privacy and breaking down barriers. In the years that followed, there have been many barriers to break down, some  much harder than others. Some bricks were hard to let go of… but we kept going.  You see, sometimes, its more about breaking down walls and mending hearts.

We are now finally ready and excited to break down our the last brick and formally becoming one, and more importantly one family under one roof.

Our journey led us to a moment that changed everything… and now, we can’t wait to begin this next chapter surrounded by the people we love most.