Life Changing

We all meet many people during our lifetime, but have you ever met someone who significantly impacted your life in a dramatic way, then they just disappeared? That happened to me about 8 years ago.

I can't say what happened, but what I can say is that this person didn't just impact my life, he saved it. My life would definitely be much different if we hadn't lost touch, but due to some circumstances beyond our control I haven't seen him again since the night he saved my life. One day I might talk about what happened, but 8 years later I still have a hard time discussing it with anyone, even the people who were around that night. We'll call him Joe for the sake of this story. No, it's not even close to his real name.

I walked outside to take the dog out, and while I was standing out there I noticed a group of guys at my uncle's car lot next door working on the roof. They've been out there all week replacing the old roof on the house that serves as the office, and I've had one of them walk over here a few times to borrow the phone while my cousins are on their lunch break and no one is in the office to let them use the phone.

One of them spotted me in the yard, and started heading my way. I assumed he was going to ask to use the phone, but as he got closer I noticed he had his thumb wrapped in a paper towel. He had his head down walking pretty fast, so I assumed he'd gotten injured somehow. He got to my driveway, close enough to talk to me and said "Mam, do you have a band aid or something I could get from you? I sliced my thumb on some of this tin."

Of course I'm not going to let a guy stand there bleeding, so I ran inside and grabbed my basket of first aid stuff. When I walked out the door he was sitting on my porch swing inspecting the cut. He looked up when I walked out, and that's when I saw his face and realized I was looking at Joe.

He didn't know I lived in this house, although he could have probably connected the dots if he'd thought about it. He knows my Grandparents own this house, and he's been here with me before. We've both changed a lot, so much that we could probably walk by each other in public without realizing it, but standing face to face it was hard to not recognize each other.

He's 30 now, recently divorced, and a full time father of 2. He just moved back to the state a couple months ago with his kids after the divorce so he could be close to his family. We talked about the last time we saw each other for a few minutes, but we quickly moved to better conversation. He showed me a couple pictures of his kids, I told him about hubby, and we agreed to get together to catch up. His crew called it a day at 2, so he stopped back by here on his way out to exchange numbers, and we promised to get together some time this weekend.

Seeing him today just reminded me how precious life is, and how we need to be thankful for the people we meet along the way. People impact our lives everyday, and sometimes it's in a bigger way than we can imagine.