Morning Coffee

The doorbell rang.  I peeped out of the window to get a first look at my expected visitors.  There stood a very tense looking man holding hands with a little boy.  Well actually he wasn't holding hands so much as clinging onto him with a vice like grip.  Over his shoulder was a rucksack.  He didn't look at all happy.  I wondered for a split second if I had made a mistake in inviting him to my home.  What on earth had possessed me?  Ethos?  Compassion?  Pity?  Probably a little of all of these.  Whatever it was he was here now so there was no going back.

I went to open the door and welcome them in.  I will never forget what I saw when I opened the door.  The man before me looked so utterly sad, forlorn and dejected.  My heart went out to him. Before I could say so much as "Hello" the little boy barged past me and into my lounge - dragging his dad behind him.  "Sorry" the man said, but he didn't need to apologise.  I knew all about the little boy and his special needs.  This was Andy and the little boy was his son, Jacob.

I had, I thought, "Jacob proofed" my lounge prior to their arrival.  How little I knew of what "Jacob proofing" really entailed.  Jacob - who has a compulsion to "post" - found every little gap, crevice, possible posting point in my lounge within the first 10 minutes of his arrival.  Nothing was safe or sacred.  Pieces of paper, bits of fluff and anything he could find were systematically posted behind the radiator, into the gap which forms the double radiator, into the crack on a wall cupboard and even into the gap I didn't know was there on the piano!

I made endless cups of coffee that day with Andy sitting on the floor (his choice) along with Jacob before, reluctantly, Andy and Jacob took their leave and returned to Hull.  It had been an eventful day after they had arrived.  I had the tiniest insight into the "complex and unique" individual Jacob is and Andy I felt, clichéd although it is, I had known for years.  Spending time in his company felt comfortable in the same way as it does sitting in your favourite old armchair.  Despite all of this I had no idea of the huge impact these two new friends were going to make on me, my family and my life.  Little did I realise that I may have met my future husband.