The Hero in our Neighbourhood

When you moved into our building, rumours flew around about you, but none called you a hero.
“He is proud”, “He is unfriendly”, “He’s a rich kid from out of town”, “He thinks he’s all that!”

Your gleaming white Audi car and the noise from your bass guitar every morning at 6 am did not help our impressions of you or endear you to many people except the kids who all loved you.

It didn’t help that you rarely said anything, you smiled and then you went your way. We lost interest in you and your silence; we moved on to more interesting issues, which is terrible, now that I think of it, until the day of the fire on the topmost floor.

I was home when I heard the shouts and ran out. I joined in stringing the hose, fetching water and calling for help. But you! You were the hero. Without a pause, you ran into that burning apartment while we held on to the hose and our phones.

You knew who lived there and shouted “two kids!” while pointing at the burning apartments. I and everybody else realised at the same time that you believed the kids were likely to be in the burning apartment.
I had moved into the same building two years before you and could still not tell the occupant of one apartment from the other, and yet we called you proud! What an irony!

You further startled us as you crawled out of the fire with both girls, screaming in a strange tongue.; French! I laugh as I type this. It was not funny then, but now it feels safe to laugh my heart out. You speak French! You don’t speak English!

How silly could we have been? You were a man of few words because you were just learning English. You are a pro now and you owe me something for those lessons, but that was the simple reason for what we called aloofness!

In the months after that incident, you have shown in so many ways that love is a language of the heart and language is no barrier to it.

How do you say a happy birthday to a lovely stranger?
The hero who has silently touched everyone in our building with his heart of gold without saying so much. A friend who has especially welcomed me into his world of music, love for local football and food! This is cheers to many more years of waking up at 6 am even when there’s no guitar because I have been re-programmed by Steve.

I thought of so many ways to celebrate you this year but etching my words forever on a platform that you can always refer to seemed awesome; appropriate, perfect.

So here you go Steve.

Merci beaucoup et Bon anniversaire, Steve.

PS: I learnt that from Google. You suck at teaching French!

With love,

Jacqueline

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