He is coming back around. I shut my eyes and think “hear no evil, see no evil, if he doesn’t know I see him we are ok.” What does he want? Who is he? Do we know him? What do I do? Maybe he’ll just rob us and go away. I pray again, harder this time. I ask God to make it a dream, a really bad dream, this can’t be real. But I can hear his breath again. I pray and pray.

I awake to my mom’s voice – she is saying she had a strange dream. I reach out to her and grab at her. I ask her to please be quiet and don’t go over there. She asked me what is wrong, and I tell her I had this bad dream and told her about it. She said, “Oh, it was just a bad dream,” started off, then froze. ”What” I asked, “What is it?” ”Where’s your sister” she asks in panic, and runs off towards her room. I wonder why, then proceed to get out of bed on my mother’s side. As I walk around the bed to exit the room I see the pole!

It wasn’t a dream after all. It was real. There was a man in our house. He had the pole to mom’s Kirby vacuum cleaner. the one from the bedroom closet. A big thick metal pole. Mom called the seven digit police number, cops came to finger print. He had jimmied the lock, broke the tumbler, made a sandwich, went to the bathroom, came into mom’s room at some point, and left. They found a shoe print but nothing more. He must have worn gloves. I am so glad that God made me fall asleep praying! To this day that memory haunts me when I think of it. I wonder now, how did I manage to fall asleep through that? It must have been God!

Morale of this true story, if you live in a big town, get several locks on your door – we did!