He Who Protects Everything ...

My sister, mom and I lived down the street from Peter during our childhood. Not only did we see our Grandparents every day, we saw Peter and other cousins too.

We would go to Pete's after school, and when it was almost time for my mom to get home from work, my sister and I would walk down the street, use our key to get into the apt, and call my grandmother to let her know we made it home ok.

At this time, I was 13 yo and my sister was 10 yo. We walked into the building and saw that this crazy guy from the building was coming in behind us. He always talked to himself (and answered) and we were afraid of him.  So, we did what stupid kids do - we taunted him, we gave him the middle finger, we called him killer - and we ran as fast as we could. I looked back behind me and realized he was chasing us up the stairs to our apt with a large knife in his hand. I opened the door as fast as I could, and he jumped on the door trying to bust it open before while I tried to close it. All the while he was yelling that he was going to get us and cut us up and eat us.

We were screaming. My sister was crying and I yelled at her to call Nana's house. My sister was screaming on the phone to my Grandmother -- but my Grandfather wasn't home from work yet. So, Nana called Peter who was 15 or 16 at the time.

It must have been seconds, because Peter arrived in a flash at the building with a hatchet. He ran after the crazy guy and he shut the door on Peter. My mom arrived and saw us crying and Peter chopping the guy's door down and she ran over to help him. Suddenly, the nut opened his door and hot boiling soup was thrown in my mother's face. She fell down on the floor. That was it -- Peter the Protector emerged -- and Peter  actually kicked the door open. The only thing we heard were BOOM, BANG, SMASH and Peter threw the guy out the apt, onto the floor and held him down until the cops came.

My sister and I always thought we were going to die that day. If it wasn't for Peter scaring the guy and making him run away from our apt, I am not sure I'd be typing this today.

But, Peter has always been a protector for us. He has always been there for us ... introducing us to things, scaring the life out of us during scary movie night ... or in this case, chasing our monsters away.