Runaway Farm

He was a cop with trust issues. Duke was a horse with a troubled past.How would they end up healing each other?

- BY CHRISTOPHER LEIGHTON

Twenty years, I thought, jogging through the neighborhood around our farm that spring morning. Where did the time go? I'd just hit two decades as a law enforcement officer here at the Jersey Shore. Retirement was on the horizon....

And I was not ready for it. Much as I loved being a husband to my wife, Jennifer, and a father to our three kids, “protect and serve” was the principle I lived by. Over the years, I'd developed a deep bond with my community and with my fellow officers.

There’s a saying in police work: “There’s no such thing as routine.” From handling traffic duty to helping folks at accident scenes to searching for missing children, every day was different. Just because I made it through one shift without incident and got home safely didn’t mean the next shift would turn out the same way. That’s why I was always thinking ahead, preparing myself for every eventuality. Except retirement. I believe that everyone has a purpose for their life, a plan guided from above. Being a police officer was mine. I just couldn’t picture what I would do after I hung up my uniform.

Ouch! A searing pain ran down the left side of my neck, jolting me from my thoughts. Man, I’m out of shape. This was my first time exercising in a year. Jen and I had been way too busy ever since we moved to the farm.

That’s what we call our log cabin on four acres. When the kids were little, we lived a mile down the road and watched the cabin being built.

“That cabin is my dream home,” I said to Jen as we drove past it one afternoon.

“I love it too,” she said. “I wonder how much land it’s on.”