My husband's and my first experience with having the police called on us came 31/2 years ago, when we moved into a new apartment.
This happened not just one time, not just two. Police were called on us 10 times over the course of a month.
The culprit: the elderly neighbor directly below us. Apparently suffering some form of dementia, she began to accuse us, without even having met us or learned our names, of making too much noise for her, of piping a noxious odor into her apartment, even of breaking into her vehicle. My attempt to make peace with the woman fell through the minute we once again made too much noise for her.
I thought of our former neighbor in light of the hot-button race issue du jour: police being called on people of color who are engaging in harmless activities.
Looking beyond the appearance-of-racial-bias issue that dominates in the cop-calling cases in the headlines, there's enough violence and tragedy going on that we're all a bit jittery. Online articles abound that address our society of fear and suspicion -- our descent into an existence in which we are ready to give the side-eye to anyone who looks, worships or believes differently from us.
But being the same color as our neighbor didn't help us. She was black, as are we. And -- although she was somehow able to otherwise function independently -- she was sick. We were just going about our business but in her mind, we were terrorizing her ... disturbing her peace, trying to poison her, trying to rip her off.
Every three or four days, a knock came at the door, and these knocks came as late as 11 p.m. We'd open it up to one, usually two, police officers. To their credit, the officers were always polite and respectful. As they continued to pay us these visits, their attitude became more apologetic. They could tell the neighbor wasn't behaving as someone who had all her faculties, but it was their duty to come when called and investigate those calls. We could reasonably assume that they'd do the same for us if we felt threatened.
But that was cold comfort at the time. We were already on edge after a move that had been unplanned, difficult and, for us, expensive -- the result of new buyers of our old downtown apartment building and their plans to transform it to accommodate more well-heeled tenants. So the police calls only added insult to injury, a kick while we were down.
Our compassion concerning our neighbor's mental condition was overshadowed by piled-on stress, anger and frustration.
According to an article at the British website Unforgettable.org, "when someone has dementia, glitches within their brains cause memory problems and changes in personality. If there's a hole in their memory, they may try to fill in that faulty memory with a delusion that makes sense to them. ...
"If they've forgotten where they left their wallet, and a new [caregiver] has just started visiting them, they may simply assume that this new person has stolen the wallet. If you're caring for a loved one, he might accuse you of being unfaithful or trying to poison [him]."
The article goes on to advise family members and caregivers not to take accusations personally and to try to distract the person rather than arguing with them. But again, our neighbor lived alone. There was no one to serve as a buffer between her and any strangers by whom she might feel threatened.
Whenever the police came knocking, we did the only thing we were told by multiple parties that we could do ... we lodged a complaint with the property management company. The neighbor eventually agreed to move, but not without calling police on us a few more times.
We have still not fully exhaled after that experience. We are still a bit jittery about unannounced knocks on our door; I even had a nightmare that the neighbor had returned.
I realized when reflecting on our former ordeal that in this respect, we, too, had bought at least two cents' worth into that "society of fear/suspicion" dynamic. The neighbor's sickness had caused her to fear and suspect us, and therefore act out against us. Being falsely accused, so many times in such a short amount of time, had caused us to look over our shoulders for attacks from anyone, regardless of race, age, rank and serial number.
I had to remind myself that the Internet also beckons with a wealth of articles about living without fear. And that the Good Book mentions followers being endowed by the Creator not with a spirit of fear, but with power, love -- and something our neighbor, through no fault of her own, came to lack ... a sound mind.
Whatever our spiritual beliefs or lack thereof, we all would benefit ourselves as well as our planet of neighbors if we overcame our jitters by operating in these three things.
Especially love.
Email:
hwilliams@arkansasonline.com
Style on 05/27/2018