5 more days

well tonight I'm back in clinton, and I'm tired of living out of a duffle bag, which I've done for the last week I feel like. me and amanda spent the day at the festival with my family. we went home about 3:30 and watch tv for a little bit, I fell asleep for an hour or so. we went with my parents and we ate dinner and then we left for brandon to drop amanda off, and now I'm back in clinton. Im sitting on my front porch typing and the weather in perfect. when i got out of my car, i walked up the deck and the smell in my nose was that of the first year I lived here and the excitement it was to live in a house and be out of school. I almost felt for a second as I walked to the mailbox that I was about to be out of school. I guess that feeling of anticipation fills my bones when the weather gets like this each year, and it will probably take a couple more seasons to grow out of it. but I hope i never do.
I talked to an old friend on my way back from brandon, and for a little while after I got home. me and my friend shaundell had been playing phone tag for the last 2 days, and he has called my several times this past month and I had not called him back yet.
fall of 2004 I was rooming with Nick. one night he was with some friends at pete's(a pizza place on campus that now is jazzmans) and they saw someone they knew. they were all having a conversation, and the friend said meet Shaundell. Nick shook his hand and began to hear his story. He grew up in California. His parents got divorced and his mom moved to jackson where she had some family . She had lived here for years. after high school he moved here with her and some how ended up at MC. His mom lived in downtown jackson off of gallitin st. she worked at clinton walmart and dropped him off at school everyday. from the morning until about 9 of 10 that night, he was on campus. no car. no money. no food. and no where to stay. So Nick just said Hey man, we live in that dorm at this room number. if you need a place to stay, or somewhere to just crash in the afternoon our door is open. Nick came back to the room and told me about the situation. and the next day, i was doing homework and a knock at the door. A tall black guy with a red hood on stuck his head in the door and I welcomed him in, we talked some and he sat on the couch and took a nap. from that september until the end of the year. Shaundell lived with us. Not sure the school would have been okay with that, but we did it anyways. he slept on our couch, or some nights we would give him our beds and we would sleep on the couch. when he needed food, we got him food. he became friends with our friends. he would stay with us about 2 or 3 days and then one of us would take him home. Nick told me about the first night he took him home. He pulled up in the drive way at his house and Nick asked if he could pray with him. So they bowed their heads and prayed. Nick told me when he got back that he got to pray with him and continued to the next several times. the first night I took him home we pulled up in the driveway and i looked over and he aleady had his head bowed.
from talking with him, we found out that he had never celebrated his birthday before. his family never acknowledged it, never really got any presents or anything. so we got a cake with his name on it, party hats, we bought him a basketball (which was like gold-thats all he did), and a bible. he came to the room one night and we yelled surprise. he had nothing to say, he was so happy, and this guy that always wore a hood everyday over his head, inside and out, who kept to himself, could do nothing but hug us. he just said thank you, we sang happy birthday, blew out candles, the whole thing. and he smiled all the way home that night, and held his basketball.
that spring one night, sitting in a neighbors dorm room stairing by himself at one of those posters with the names of God on it, asked the question could God really save him from his sins. Shaundell came to know that Lord that night.
the look on his face when he opened that door, of which we were all on the outside of in the hall praying, I will never forget that look, and those eyes, when he finally got it.
we had a friend walking to class that next day and saw Shaundell walking, they came to let me and nick know that Shaundell wasn't wearing wearing his hood.
walking from darkness to light. beautiful. thats real. thats what its about.