That's not Jesus

I love my home. I love my area, I love the local school, and I love my neighbors.

Well, most of them, anyway.

A few years back, my next door neighbors got divorced. Up until then, they'd been very nice, quiet, friendly neighbors. But once divorced, the woman went crazy, whooping it up and turning her also very-nice house into a crack den.

I tried for two years to get rid of her and all the druggies who flocked to her house. Nothing worked--not the stink eye, not rallying the other neighbors, not the police, nothing. It seemed like no one would help.

During the worst of it, I gave up my fight and decided to just move. I put my house up for sale, sat back, and waited for the offers to roll in (this was before the housing market crashed).

When they didn't, I resorted to something I don't normally--religion. Someone told me to bury a statue of St. Joseph in the backyard, upside down. Apparently, St. Joseph is the patron saint of homes or something, and brings good luck and fast offers to your home.

What the heck, I thought. Those crackheads were driving me nuts, and I wanted to get out.

And so I ordered my very own little plastic statue of St. Joseph. Mark opened the package when it arrived, and was befuddled.

"Mom!" shouted my six-year-old son. "Somebody sent us Jesus!"

"That's not Jesus," I corrected. "It's St. Joseph. We're supposed to bury him in the backyard, and he'll help us sell our house."

Mark looked at me, confused--pretty much the same feeling I get now, telling this story with a few years of perspective on it. But I buried St. Joseph, just like the instructions said. I waited, but the offers never came.

But Mark still had concerns about our friendly saint. And because he was little, without filters, he voiced them often, and loudly, and never at the right moment.

"Tell her we buried Jesus in the backyard!" he shouted, while I was talking to our real estate agent. I shushed him, growling, "It's NOT Jesus!"

He also wondered who got possession of the saint when we sold the house.

"Tell her about the guy buried in the backyard," Mark said, nudging me in front of one prospective buyer. "Does she get him if we move? Or does he come with us?"  

Needless to say, that lady did not put in an offer.

He was fascinated by St. Joe. Mark told numerous people about him, always leading with, "We buried a guy in our back yard!" I'm pretty sure people thought I was a serial killer.

Well, the economic down turn foiled my plans, and we never did sell the house. Ironically enough, our luck finally changed when the neighbor almost burned her house down while we were on vacation. The crackhead and her squatter posse moved back into the condemned house, and that was finally what the city needed to get them out once and for all.

Like I said, all that happened years ago. I hadn't even thought about it until last night, when Mark and I were tossing the football in the backyard. Suddenly, apropos to nothing, Mark said, "Hey Mom, there's Jesus."

"What?" I asked, confused.

"Jesus," Mark repeated, pointing at that ground. "Remember, we buried him?"

And so he was--and so we did! Somehow, he'd found his way up and out, and was lying in the dirt.

"Huh," I said, brushing him off. "He looks like he's carrying donuts and a jug of wine."

I took a good look, and thought of how much more involved in our community we are today, and how much I love our little home. I silently thanked him for not being much help after all.

The I picked up the football, turned to Mark, and repeated what I've been saying all these years.

"That's not Jesus," I told my little heathen son.