Crying anew

Today I cried for you both, more than usual.  Maybe because I found out that my neighbour had lost his wife in January and we hadn't even realised.  I was only asking if he wanted to fix the fence with us that had fallen down over the winter. 

He started crying, that raw kind of pain I recognise as also my own.  I knew something terrible had happened and then I realised that I hadn't seen her in a while and he said "I guess I haven't told you about my wife.....".  Well no, he hadn't, we hadn't talked in such a long while, such are the impersonal relationships with neighbours in modern Britain.  Having said that I never was told that the couple on the other side had had a baby either, only seen them as they take the baby in and out of the house never glancing, I have given up greeting them in any way.  

I immediately felt that I had to run to him and tell him that it was going to be alright.  Of course it will be alright, somehow I will just have to try to show him how....