an old young friend

I met this kid in Grand Rapids riding his bike with a rake. We started chatting, I was intrigued by the rake and asked him how it was going. He's an easy kid to talk to and even though I had no leaves to be raked, I gave him my address and told him I probably had something I needed help with -- feel free to pop by. He did show up and I have to tell you it brought me so much joy to see this this young guy. We walked around the yard and came up with projects that were kind of ridiculous, but nonetheless, he wanted to work and I wanted to hire him.

My mistake was starting to make breakfast for this kid with an appetite the size of Texas. I made him bagel sandwiches, grilled cheese, I think I gave him veggie sausage which he ate with great skepticism -- whatever, we were a mishmash. We started to just sit in the back yard talking -- he told me about his life and I told him about mine. He was 15 at the time and I was 49. He met my girls and then soon they were making him grilled cheese sandwiches and talking about music.

He didn't just visit my house, but went by my friend's. I had mentioned him to her and one day he rode his bike past her house and she immediately found things for him to do. They were forewarned about his appetite and gave him something great to eat.

Randomly, yesterday, this friend and I mentioned that we had not seen him in some time. I had rebooted my phone from factory start and lost a lot of my contacts. I hadn't even had a minute to check if his was still there before he showed up tonight at my doorstep. I took that guy into the biggest hug. Seeing his face cured any fleeting worry of anything in my life at the moment. He came in and I gave him his first Fresca, which kind of blew his mind. He said we were bougey and I laughed. Oy.

We made dinner together, S and I, while my girls were upstairs. Ella came down and when I asked her to set the table she griped about it. S made fun of me as I started to shock the green beans, telling me that it was cheating. I think he thought I was going to boil them. No, my friend, come here -- this is your job now. I'll be over here overcooking the chicken like a good Dutch girl. I explained the shocking method, and he started to section out the beans and as soon as they turned bright green, he spooned them out and set them in a bowl of ice water. After that, he was in charge of frying them -- something he was excited about. He perused the spice drawer and went to work. He called his dish, "cayenne green beans," and despite Ella being too delicate to eat them, they were so delicious.

It is strange how random life works. I can talk to this guy about anything. At the dinner table, he and the girls talked about music and he introduced me to Olivia Rodrigo. I turned him on to Jack Johnson, which he danced to as he prepared the green beans. He is someone who wants to talk about everything and we don't have to worry about how we say it to each other. We talk about gangs, girlfriends and being careful about love. He wants to go into business, he loves art -- he's this amazing soul of a person and the miracle of him landing in our world is like a butterfly landing on your hand and resting for awhile. How lucky is that?