A reader writes:
I have been reading this site for about two years, mostly the posts about building, because my husband and I finished our house in stages and I like to know other people went through the same foolishness we did. I never thought I would write in. But my daughter said the story is worth telling, so here it is, as plain as I can make it.
We bought our lot in 2009. The man next door, I will call him Mr Barrett, was already living there with his wife and a grandson. Between his yard and ours there was no wall, only a row of croton his wife had planted years before, red and yellow, very pretty. Everybody just took it that the croton was the line.
Fast forward to three years ago. My husband decided we would finally put up a proper wall, because goats were coming through and the grandson, who is a big man now, had started parking his car close to our bedroom window. Before the mason started, our attorney said to get the land surveyed properly so we build on the right spot. The surveyor came, found the old pegs, and told us the true boundary was about two feet on Mr Barrett’s side of the croton. Two feet, the whole length of the yard.
I will be honest. My first feeling was not holy. It was: so we have been losing two feet all these years. My husband was calmer. He said we should just talk to them. But how you talk? We went over one evening with the surveyor’s diagram and Mr Barrett took one look and said his wife planted that croton before we were even born, and no paper was going to tell him where his yard ended. He said some things about people who come from Kingston and think they own the place. I said some things back that I would not repeat in church.
For nearly eight months we did not speak. When I hung out clothes I did not look over. When his grandson revved the car at midnight, I was sure he was doing it on purpose. My husband kept saying leave it, but at the same time he was talking to the attorney about sending a letter. I prayed about it, but if I am truthful, I was praying for God to show Mr Barrett he was wrong.
What changed things was nothing clever. Mrs Barrett fell in her bathroom and broke her hip. We heard the ambulance. I stood at my window watching them carry her out and I felt ashamed of myself, because I realised I did not even know if she had anybody to cook for her while she was in hospital. Mr Barrett cannot boil water, everybody in the district knows that.
So that Saturday I made red peas soup, the big pot, with pig tail and spinners the way my mother made it, and I sent my daughter over with a container. I was too proud to go myself. She came back and said he took it and said thanks, nothing more. The next Saturday I sent soup again. The third Saturday he came to the gate himself to bring back the containers, all washed, and he stood there longer than he needed to.
When Mrs Barrett came home, walking with a frame, she sent to say we must come and eat with them. I did not want to go. I was afraid the boundary would come up and we would end up quarrelling at the table. My husband said we are going, and we are not bringing any diagram.
We sat on their verandah. She had made fried fish and festival, and there was sorrel even though it was not Christmas. For the first hour we talked about everything except the land. Her hip. Our daughter’s exams. How the parish council never fixed the road. Then Mr Barrett, of all people, brought it up. He said, “So what we doing about this croton business?”
And this is the part I want people to hear. Mrs Barrett told us the croton was the first thing she planted when they moved in, after she lost a baby. She put it there because she needed to see something grow. To her, it was never a boundary. It was that child. Nobody had ever asked her.
I felt it in my chest. All that time I thought we were arguing about two feet of dirt.
We did not settle everything that night, but we started. Over the next few weeks we agreed that the wall would go on the true line as the surveyor marked it, because we all knew the papers had to be right for our children’s sake, and the attorney said leaving it unclear could cause trouble when either house is sold or passed on. But the wall would stop short at the croton. The croton stays, on our side of the line, and Mrs Barrett tends it whenever she likes. There is a little gap for her to come through. We put it in writing, simple, and both families signed, and the attorney looked it over.
Mr Barrett and my husband ended up building the wall together, with the mason. The grandson moved his car. I will not pretend Mr Barrett turned into a saint. He still complains about my dog. But when my husband was in hospital last year, it was Mr Barrett who drove me there at two in the morning.
I think about how close we came to letters and lawyers and years of cold faces. I think about how I was praying to win instead of praying for peace. And I think the Lord used a broken hip and a pot of soup to do what a surveyor’s diagram could not.
If you are in a quarrel with the people next door, get the papers right, yes. But go and find out what the land means to them before you go to war over it. You might be surprised.
— Joan, Clarendon
Editor’s note
Thank you, Joan. Two things stand out. First, you did not choose between getting the facts right and keeping the peace. The survey was done, the line was agreed, the arrangement was written down and checked. That protects both families long after the people at that table are gone. Second, the breakthrough came when somebody asked what the land meant, not just where it ended. Romans 12:18 says, “If it is possible, as much as depends on you, live peaceably with all men.” Sometimes what depends on us is a pot of soup and the humility to send it before we are ready to go ourselves.
This article is general information only and is not financial, legal, tax or other professional advice. Please speak to a qualified professional about your own circumstances.
Reader letters may be edited for length and clarity, and names and identifying details are changed.
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