A wonderful quarantine friendship

After weeks of lockdown, most of us would rather do without the brittle charm of quarantine in future. But the pandemic has also produced some wonderful stories, and I would like to tell you one of them.

In normal times, my mum travels halfway across Switzerland every week to look after her grandchildren. But she stopped travelling in mid-March because the Federal Council wanted her to. She stayed at home and didn't see anyone else for the time being, we just celebrated her milestone birthday in a very small circle.

But she lives in an open housing estate with lots of families and friendly neighbours who go shopping for her or stop for a chat at the fence on her patio. My mum grows her flowers and herbs on the patio. She also walks out onto the neighbourhood path, so my mother spent a lot of time there during quarantine thanks to the nice weather.

One sunny Friday afternoon, she was sitting there with me and we were drinking coffee at a safe distance. A boy of perhaps four years old appeared at the fence on his bike. Wearing a baseball cap that was far too big for him, he stood there peering out from under the umbrella with his beady eyes. My mum said hello to him, he greeted me back and looked at me in silence, only to slowly roll back to the pavement on his bike a moment later.

«When are you leaving again?» He was obviously waiting for my mum to have time for him again.

Then my mum told me the story of this friendship. During quarantine, the little boy turned up at her fence one day on his bike. He asked her what her name was, she told him and he then told her that he could already ride his bike without a helmet. Whereupon she told him that he had to be careful.

The little boy lived with his father in the neighbourhood, my mother told me. His older cousins often visit, perhaps he feels like a fifth wheel in their presence and that's why he comes to visit them.

Anyway, he came again. The second time, he asked her if she remembered what they had talked about the last time. «My dad says he knows you,» he told her and she replied: «Yes, I know him too.»

The next time, it had been raining for a few days, he wanted to know why she hadn't been outside. He had only seen her through the window. She replied that she had been outside too - she had even seen him on a walk. He was down by the football pitch with his dad. They talked again through the fence.

You couldn't invent it more beautifully

That afternoon, when I was sitting on my mum's patio, it wasn't long before the boy was there again. He stood by the fence again and looked over at us, especially at me. Then he asked innocently: «When are you leaving again?» He was obviously waiting for my mum to have time for him again. I told him I'd be gone in a minute anyway and left the little one to his own devices.

A friendship between a grandmother of seven and a four-year-old boy in the spring of quarantine - it couldn't be more beautifully invented.