Mr. Nelson's neighborhood

The house I live in is two-and-a-half storeys, a rowhouse like so many in East London, sharing walls with its neighbors on either side. To the right as you face our house is a shut internet shop, then some florists. To the left, houses stretch endlessly, their chimneys and chimney pots punctuating the habitually low gray London sky. I have three housemates, actually four now that one’s girlfriend moved in a week ago.

The ground floor has a living room that’s used more as a bike garage and laundry-drying area, though if the house weren’t so damn cold we might use it as more of a lounge. There’s a nice little kitchen and a small eating area. Out through a sliding door is a small overgrown grassy yard or garden with a shed built into the back wall.

Up the stairs are three bedrooms and a bath. One room is quite large. The other two considerably smaller. Up another flight of stairs is the largest bedroom. My room has a good double bed in it and a wardrobe. And room for nothing else. If I lie crossways on my bed, I can touch opposite walls with tiptoes and head.

Have I mentioned how cold it is? (Robin: you are forewarned.) Many a night I’ve jumped under my duvet wearing a T-shirt, cotton pants, a sweatshirt, socks, and fingerless gloves like someone from a Dickens novel. The woolen prayer shawl that women in my church gave me when I left ministry doubles as a wrap under the duvet to keep my dreams toasty. I may add the practice of a hot bath before turning in. I’m certainly appreciating a good cup of hot tea when I have the leisure. (As I sit typing, cup of tea steaming within reach on the tabletop, in addition to what I put on this morning I wear a sweater, my shawl, and Bob Cratchit’s gloves. A hat may come next.)

Over the wall in the back garden is the East London Cemetery and Crematorium. (No, we don't see smoke rising ghoulishly from a smokestack. This isn’t Schindler’s List.) The cemetery entrance is a short walk from our front door. Just to your right when you enter the cemetery is the area where people’s ashes are apparently interred, very small stones in a close grid. Each has a well-pruned rosebush, a lovely touch. I’d never seen that before—and I’ve been in American cemeteries a fair amount. But that’s not the only difference here. Something about the rest of the cemetery has brought me to tears on two of my three visits. It’s somehow a very intimate place where the grief is made permanent, literally carved in stone.

The larger part of the East London Cemetery is jammed with monuments, many of them bearing a first name more prominently than the family name. Many bear doggerel verse of almost unbearable sentiment. A monument that caught my eye on my first stroll through the cemetery is dominated by a stone dartboard where you might expect to see a Celtic cross or an angel. Topping the stone, the name Billy in big letters. Carved into the polished stone below the dartboard:

BILLY GILL
TRAGICALLY TAKEN FROM US 5TH FEB 1990
AGED 24 YEARS

HAVE YOU EVER LOST A SON WHO WAS EVERYTHING TO YOU,
ONE YOU LOVED SO MUCH AND MISS HIM LIKE WE DO.
HAVE YOU EVER HAD THE HEARTACHE OR EVEN FELT THE PAIN.
WE PRAY YOU NEVER DO.
BECAUSE IF TEARS COULD BUILD A STAIRWAY
AND MEMORIES BUILD A LANE,
WE WOULD HAVE WALKED TO HEAVEN
TO BRING OUR SON BACK AGAIN.
LOVE YOU FOREVER, YOUR DEVOTED MUM & DAD
XXX XXX

And further toward the front of that same grave, upright on the horizontal marble slab, gilded letters carved into two panels forming a heart-shaped with a jagged break down the middle:

A THOUSAND WORDS
WON’T BRING YOU BACK.
WE KNOW BECAUSE WE HAVE TRIED.
NEITHER WILL A MILLION TEARS,
WE KNOW BECAUSE WE HAVE CRIED.
YOU LEFT BEHIND
MANY BROKEN HEARTS,
MANY MEMORIES TOO.
BUT WE NEVER
WANTED MEMORIES.
“BILLY, WE ONLY WANTED YOU.”
LOVE FROM YOUR
BROKEN HEARTED
MUM & DAD

I'm just here for a short time--maybe two years at most. I'll never be a true East Ender. But there's something sweet and sad here that touches me.