The Blind Side

I went to see this movie in theaters, and just watched it again last night. It really and truly moves me. It makes me so happy...at the same time, makes me want to cry! While there is some language and drug use in the movie, it just lets you know how bad Michael Oher's life was before he met Sean & Leigh Ann. If you haven't seen it, please do!

So much of the movie reminds me of my Uncle Gary. If you don't know about him, here's the story. Gary was a homeless man. A guy that went to church with us out in TN met him one Saturday evening. He bought him some dinner, and put him in a hotel for the night. He invited Gary to church the next day. Never really expecting to see him again. Low and behold, we walk into church that Sunday morning, and there was a shaggy, redheaded man sitting on the back row. I have to admit, he was gross looking, smelled bad, and I just kind of walked to sit down, not wanting to talk to him. I'm so ashamed of that now. That day, we took him to eat dinner, cut his hair, got him some new clothes. He looked like a new man!

That night, he slept in the church building. My parents couldn't sleep a wink. They had a spare bed, and here this man is attempting to sleep on a pew. The next day, Dad and Steven picked him up to go to work with them (they had a flooring business together at the time). That night my Dad told Mom that Gary would be staying with us. I don't remember if it was for a night or more, but I slept in my parents bedroom floor with the door locked. Dad got to know him, and he was a good, nice man. He'd had a rough life, and had some addiction that he wanted to try and straighten out. So Dad brought him home. He lived with us until he was able to get his own apartment, and later a trailer.

He sang in my and Will's wedding. "When You Say Nothing At All" will always be Uncle Gary's song...as well as "Love Lifted Me", since that was his favorite song to lead at church.

He obeyed the gospel, and was doing great! Then my parents moved. The move was rough on Gary. He didn't like change, and there was a lot going on at the time. After a while, he went missing. We didn't know where he was and if he was even alive. It was terribly rough on our family. We loved him so much. He was apart of our family.

Then in early 2008, we got a call from a hospital in Georgia. Gary was in the hospital dying of cancer. When he was asked if there was anyone they could contact, he said his family and gave them our numbers. Mom and I drove to get him. We brought him home, and got him in some cancer treatments. However, he lost the battle to cancer in May of 2008. It was actually the day of my baby shower from the church my parents attend. We were late to my shower because he died that morning.

I will never look at a homeless person (or a person that's addicted to drugs or alcohol) the same way again. I used to think that it was by choice, and they were just lazy. And while that's definitely true in some cases, it's not true in all of them. Uncle Gary changed my life. I can totally relate to the line in the movie when one of Leigh Ann's friends says "You are changing that boy's life" and Leigh Ann replies,

"No, he's changing mine!"