She Gets it.

My Aunt has the biggest heart. She would do anything for anybody. She’s also very resourceful, I call her 'Julie Gets' because whatever you need, Julie gets.

When my Mother, her sister, was sick with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma she found a place to get a mobile oxygen tank when Mom was having a difficult time getting around. She constantly does things like that.

Because she is so giving and tends to take in those that others consider “bad apples”, she’s been taken advantage of on numerous occasions.

Her own son, who struggles with addictions, has broken her heart many times. He is now in state prison, though he is making an effort to get well by enrolling himself in an addiction counseling program that the prison has offered.

You would think people would support her in her endeavors, but instead she has endured criticism. They tell her she’s enabling rather than helping, that she doesn’t use discretion when choosing whom to help. Their judgment is correct to a point, an addict should not be enabled, but they never seem to look past it to see her heart. A heart that wants to see people set free.

Not long ago my cousin called her from the state prison. He told her about an old man named Rock he had be-friended. Rock was getting out of prison after many years of incarceration.

My cousin had made few friends in prison because it’s not always safe to do so, but he and Rock had made an instant connection. They watched out for each other. My cousin shared with my Aunt that Rock had no one; not a family member left here on earth. He asked her if she wouldn’t mind picking Rock up, and help him find a place after he was released.

My Aunt, being who she is, agreed. Before the day arrived for her to pick him up, she felt like perhaps she should offer him the extra room she had since the local rescue mission was booked and would not have an opening for weeks.

Actually the 'extra room' is a converted shed she had someone build in her backyard, complete with a porch and an old rocking chair. She planted flowerbeds around giving it the touch it needed to make it feel like a home. She's good at that too. The tiniest shack is a place called home when she gets through with it.

She discussed with her husband the possibility of having him stay in her extra room. My Uncle was reluctant at first to agree, but one Sunday on their way home from church, he changed his mind. For her it seemed like the right thing to do, and he agreed. She decided to wait to tell Rock until she met him in person.

When the day of his release arrived, she drove to the prison to pick him up. Out walked an old man around 70 years old, rough around the edges, but somehow endearing. He was a bit bow-legged, not stooped, but not very tall. Like her son, she felt a connection immediately.

That day she took him for his first meal outside of prison. She told him she’d take him anywhere he wanted to go to get something to eat. He told her he would love to get a hamburger at a favorite fast food restaurant. He said my cousin and he used to talk about them all the time while behind bars. How much they missed eating them! Later while he was enjoying the hamburger, she offered him a place to stay. Relieved, he agreed.

In true 'Julie Gets' fashion she quickly had him settled in and even helped him get his official real birth certificate, which was something he needed since he had no SSN. You see he had been living under an assumed name for many, many, years pulling cons, before he was sent to prison.

She finally told me about all this the week we shared a vacation in Lewes DE, after he had been at her place only a couple days. I discreetly asked questions about him, concerned about his past. Despite my concern something inside of me felt this was the right thing to do too, after all everybody deserves a second chance.

“Julie," I shared, "I feel good about this one, I’m glad you can be there for him”. And I was.

Not long after that I was able to meet Rock. I went over to visit my cousin, her daughter, whose kids and husband were out of town at that time. My Aunt had called my cousin before I arrived and invited us over for corn on the cob and cheese steaks.

When we walked into Aunt Julie's house Rock was making the cheese steaks at the stove. My Aunt buzzed around the kitchen like she usually does, getting the rest of the meal together.

Before we sat down to eat, he went out into the garage and got a couple vanilla sodas for me and my cousin, which is a testament to both him and my Aunt. Julie owns a health food store along with my Uncle and despises soda for its unhealthy properties. She rarely has it in the house, but she had bought some just for Rock to enjoy. And Rock? Well, he shared something he could have horded all to himself after being deprived of something he loved for so long.

Dinner was informal and we chatted about different things. Julie teased Rock about how well he ate his corn on the cob considering he had false teeth. He informed her he had no problem since he loved it so much. Actually I think it was a race between Rock and me to see who could eat the most. I rarely treat myself to corn on the cob since it’s usually just me eating dinner alone. Making corn on the cob for one seems like a waste, so given the chance, I eat as much as my stomach can handle. For Rock it was a treat because he rarely had it those long years in prison. In the end, staring at the bare cobs piled on a plate, I decided it was a tie.

We laughed quite a bit during that meal. Rock liked to laugh. He told me at one point, my Aunt Julie makes him laugh more than anyone ever did.

After dinner we went outside and he showed us the butterfly bush he helped Julie pick out and proudly showed us all the weeding he had been doing for her.

When it was time to go I said goodbye, and didn’t think much of him after that, other than when I told my boyfriend about him. I told him Rock reminded me of a character in one of our favorite movies based on a Stephen King short story. The character was an old man who was let out of prison after many years, then eventually committed suicide because he didn’t know who or how to be on the 'out side' anymore.

My Aunt had told me Rock was constantly telling her, “I’m going to bed now” or “I’m going to the bathroom now” or "I'm going outside". Just like the old man from the movie, he had been institutionalized by the system. He didn’t know how to do anything without letting someone know where he'd be or asking permission. When thinking on this, it struck me that freedom doesn’t always happen automatically even if you are no longer physically imprisoned. There is a freedom of the soul, beyond physical release, that must take place.

One night I was driving home from work and finally was able to pick up my voicemail. Aunt Julie had left a message telling me Rock had died. He had an aneurism that went to his heart. She was calling to invite me to a memorial service she was going to have for him at her house that Sunday. She said he mentioned me a couple times after that one time meeting him, saying how great her family was, and how I made him laugh. Julie, who now had his ashes after the state had paid for his cremation, said she was going to bury them underneath the butterfly bush.

I cried when I heard the news. Not because I knew him well and would miss him, although there is an element of sadness that comes from seeing someone die no matter how little you know them.

No, I cried because of who my Aunt is. From her giving nature she helped an old man begin to feel true freedom, perhaps for the first time in his life. He didn’t have to worry about what he was going to eat, how lonely he might be on the outside with no one alive who remembered him, or where he was going to live. His weeks of freedom from prison were even sweeter I think because, well because ‘Julie Gets’. She gets what it means to be a true, caring, individual. She gave sacrificially and selflessly without thinking what she might get out of it. She simply gets it. I hope someday people will say that about me.