I STILL REMEMBER!!!!

Good afternoon on this May 18th.....I'm going to share a piece of my heart with you this afternoon....A part I don't share with too many people.....

In my hallway on my peg rail I have a simple sampler I'm asked about often....It has the initials JLT as mine as being the stitcher, and then it has the initials MCS for Michael Christopher Smith....Born 1968...Died 1981....A short life lived....I don't remember who the designer of the sampler is because it has been many years since I stitched it......

I don't know why God brings certain people into our lives, but I know it is for a purpose...And I've asked myself many times "why"??...But I'm forever changed and blessed for having known Mike....

You see, Mike was the popular boy...Good looks, excellent at sports, and all the girls liked him....But for some reason I caught his eye back in 1981....I was 14... He was 12....I was the envy of all the girls....And Mike became MY boyfriend...LOL


Then, on May 18th....We had really bad storms all day..You know the kind that it is just like night time outside all day...My mind takes me back to that day every year as I remember....A phone call after school...Baseball games were still on for that night even though the weather had been bad..."I'm going fishing for a while"...But "I'll see you tonight at your brother's ballgame"....Then he said "I love you" and he was gone....Later at the ballgame I waited and waited, but Mike never showed up....They came....Word spread fast...Mike was gone...There had been an accident and he had fallen in...They speculated that the current from the storms were too hard even though he knew how to swim...MY Mike was gone!!...And my heart broke into a million pieces....


Days of mourning, a funeral, trying to get through final exams....It had only been a week before summer vacation....My life ceased to exist as I it had ever been....I was forever changed...My friends and Mike's friends rallied around me as  shield of protection to help me cope....


So I wrote.....I have a thick 3 inch notebook that is full of memories....A diary of the first time I saw him...How he looked at me...How he smiled at me through his bangs hanging in his eyes....How he'd sing to me in every phone conversation.....I wrote every expression and conversation I could remember up until a point that I didn't need to write as much anymore over a period of several years later...Friends wrote about their memories of each moment that they were there around us,what they heard, what Mike said about me in conversations with them,
and I compiled it into a book.....I still have that book that I can sit down and read and go back in time....When Taylor was 16, I let her read it...She had been begging for several years to....I wanted her to know her mother's heart as a girl....And she laughed and cried throughout it...


So these pictures, my locket, and this book is all that is left from that time in my life.....And I remember him every year on this day....I promised I always would...And even though my adult heart belongs to Tim and our family there are tears in my heart that can never be repaired...Tears that take me back to that time....


And to this day whenever I go home to Middle Tennessee....Home to Smyrna...I ALWAYS go to visit him....I take red roses and I remember him....And Tim goes with me....He always has! Even when we were dating and I'd go home to visit...I always went to the cemetary....He has always been respectful of my feelings and I'm forever greatful for that.....

My heart knows that  my God takes away, but he always gives back.....Twenty five years later, my due date for my son was the day before Mike's birthday....No one can convince me that that was a coincidence....And even though Luke was induced and born on the 13th instead....I know it was sign from God telling me...."Here's my gift back to you".... 

And becoming a mother helped me to know the depth of the pain his mom felt and I'm sure feels to this day......I think of her often..I wish I had kept in touch, but as I got older and went on with my life I didn't call as much as I did for several years after....I saw her my last day before taking a trip to Georgia my senior year..She was getting remarried..And then I learned several years later that she had moved to Florida....I will always regret I didn't find out her new married name and keep in touch...She was always so sweet to me and would check in on me after Mike's death....


So on this day I want to share my sampler that so many have asked about and my pictures....His school year picture....The picture of him I have in a locket on my charm necklace....His baseball picture taken just weeks before....And his All-Star basketball pictures taken from the newspaper....

So as I gently tuck my book of memories and pictures back into my grandmother's old trunk I want to end by saying......

"Thank you LORD for bringing him into my life.... Keep him close to your side til I see him again someday....Kiss his cheek and tell him for me that he's not forgotten... "I still remember!!!"


Until next time~~hugs, Jen