I opened my front door to the quietest of knocks. Our six-year-old son waited with a stranger. My heart raced at the realization of what could have happened while he stood, wondered where I was, and walked the half mile from the bus stop to our house by himself. It was a Monday. And I’d forgotten that students were released one hour earlier than usual. The kindness of eleven-year-old Emily Hunt–who walked Garrett to the door, and her mother Laurie–who accompanied the pair by car, averted infinite scary scenarios that swirled around inside my head on that day and many more into the future. This was but one of a number of interactions between our family and the Hunts, who’d moved to the community long before we arrived. Within the year, Peter had asked me to join the board of our community association. Two years later, Hunt chose to Lean In and become a member of the Oak Harbor School Board, much of the time as its president (he continues his service today). And before he gave up his position as a member of the Dugualla Community, Inc. Board, much of it as president, he, along with Roger Pierce, was instrumental in negotiating a conservation easement with Whidbey Camano Land Trust to prevent the development of about 30 acres of wetland and 128 feet of shoreline in an estuary highly coveted as habitat for smolt. The year we moved close enough to Peter and Laurie Hunt for our kids to share a bus stop, 2005, was the same one he was diagnosed with Young-onset Parkinson’s disease at age 43.

To read the rest of this blog, go to https://juleerudolfblog.wordpress.com/2018/01/01/peter-peter-writer-seeker/