Amazing Grace

Today I'm going to give you a little glimpse into the craziness that is my mind. Lucky you.

When Tobin and I moved into his grandmother's house, our neighbor who has lived next door for at least 30 years, told me about a guy, JG, who is only a few years older than we are and grew up in the neighborhood. He was actually friends of Dan's older brother. Our neighbors mentioned that as far as they knew, JG lived in the woods directly behind our houses. For a while this scared me a bit. I imagined some crazy homeless monster living in the woods, riding deer and stalking me from the comfort of his hidden tree fort. I thought that he might break in while we were at work or that he was waiting for us to go to sleep so he could sleep in our shed.

For a while, this quasi tormented me but after we got Blue, I started to rethink the JG situations and imagined that he was a kind person who enjoyed mother nature. When I would walk Blue late at night or early in the morning, when it was still dark, I would imagine that JG was watching me, protecting me from the harmful Northeast predators. I often imagined that if anyone was breaking into the house, he would rescue us. In my warped mind, he was like my own private batman. And until last night, he was one of the nameless, faceless many.

April Fools Day is Tobin's Dad's birthday so we went to his parents' house for dinner. They live around the corner from us and their house backs up to the same woods ours does. After dinner and cleaning up, Tobin's brother, sister-in-law, and niece left to go home. A few minutes later, there was a soft knock on the screen door. We couldn't pretend we weren't there as you could see right into the house. I was closest and when I opened the door, I was staring right at JG (although I didn't know it yet). He quietly introduced himself and mentioned that he used to be Tobin's brother's friend. He asked for a few dollars for double cheeseburgers at McDonald's. In all honesty, none of us had cash on us so Tobin's Mom gave him tupperware filled with leftover pulled pork and some fresh rolls and plates. He was so polite and nice, it broke my heart.

I have probably thought about him every day since I first heard that he was living in the woods behind the house. Meeting him was nothing like I imagined it would be, it was just sad and it made me feel helpless. But I won't lie, when I turned off the lights last night to fall asleep, I felt a little comfort thinking about JG, full from his pulled pork sanwiches, watching over our house.