Benjamin Olson with Mary O'Neill.

Gulf Today Report

A rare friendship between a two-year-old boy and his 99-year-old neighbour blossomed after a quarantine was imposed in Minneapolis. During this period the infant did not see any other child, so the elderly woman became his best friend, according to British media.

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For more than a year, the little boy, Benjamin Olson did not see other children, and did not interact with anyone except his family and his elderly widowed neighbour, Mary O'Neill, who suffers from loneliness. An unexpected friendship developed between them, after they used to hold regular meetings at the fence that separates their homes.

"They built an incredibly strong bond," his father Olson told media.

Benjamin's friendship also brings great joy to O'Neill, who will turn 100 in a few months, as the elderly woman lost her husband 37 years ago, while her children and grandchildren all live abroad.

At first, she used to wave to him from behind the window. But then she began to come out to greet the little boy.

The greetings eventually evolved into regular meetings on the fence separating their backyards.

During their visits to the backyard, they came up with their own game called " Ping Ball," in which the child kicks the ball to O'Neill, who will use her wand to return it to him.

In the warmer months, the two friends like to sit on the steps and shoot bubbles together, and the elderly woman gave the child a box of toys belonging to her late son.

"Sometimes he would get up and grab some sand or a rock and give it to me as a gift," O'Neill says.

"It makes me feel good."

O'Neill said she considered Benjamin and his little brother like her grandchildren, and explained that she missed him when inclement weather prevented her from meeting him outside the house. The child's mother was moved after hearing those words and cried. "When she said she missed him, I didn't know that before," she said, wiping tears from her eyes. I'm so happy for them," she said, adding that she had no idea how much Benjamin meant to her.

"Mary is Benjamin's best and first friend," the mother added.