I received a text this morning at 6 a.m. That's right, 6 o'clock in the morning! I am a sleeper. I love naps and I love sleeping in.... especially in the summer, so anyone who texts me at 6 a.m. better have a good reason for it. Not Marla. She was returning my text from the day before. She just wanted to tell me that Tuesday will work for her and the boys to come over. Really, Marla? At 6 a.m? Let me remind you, I am not your kind. By the time one of my eyes opens to see the light of day, you have fixed breakfast, packed your kids' lunches, gone for a run, showered and washed, dried and folded your laundry. So I get that you're a morning person, but couldn't you have held off on that text for oh...say, two, three, four more hours?
Well, thank God she didn't. Had I not woken up to check the text, I wouldn't have heard the strange sound coming from my window. At first I thought the mice were back, and scrambling across the bottom of the window. My dog, who barks at every person who walks by our house, was sound asleep next to me. He didn't budge.
I sat up to check it out. That's when I saw the shadow of someone on the other side of my curtains. I pulled back the curtain and there was a young man on the other side of the window, trying to lift it open. My instincts caused me to hit the window and yell, "HEY!"
That's right. I yelled hey. Don't judge. It worked. He ducked down below my window, and I quickly closed my curtain, grabbed my phone and called 911. With adrenalin pumping and fear evident, my voice quivered when I told the operator that a man was trying to get in my bedroom window. To hear myself say those words was shocking. I stayed on the line as the operator asked me questions.
I was too freaked out to look out the bedroom window again to see if he was still crouching down in the walkway between my house and my neighbor's house. But as I moved into the next room and looked out the back door, I saw him entering the back gate of another neighbor's house across the alley. When the police finally arrived, they searched the neighbor's backyard and surrounding area but to no avail. He was gone.
He's not gone in my mind though. He lingers there. Along with the questions of what he wanted and why he wanted to get into our home. Sure, I am on edge, but I'm not scared. I don't fear for my safety or the boys' safety. I don't have a good reason why, except because of the grace of God, and the fact that I was awake when it happened, all because of a 6 a.m. text. Thanks, Marla. I mean it.