May 2nd

For some odd reason I can remember people's birthday from my childhood. I don't know why that information sticks, but it does. May 2nd was one of my very best friends from middle school birthday. Her name was Michelle Burks. I don't know how Michelle and I became such good friends, but from sixth to eighth grade we were like peas and carrots. I can't tell you the countless hours we spent talking on the phone and testing out 3 way calling (which just came out and was all the rage). I also can't tell you how many nights I spent over at her house or her mom driving us around in her huge gray and black van. It is funny all the little things I remember, like she was left handed and always and I mean always had a compact mirror with her to check her face about 20 to 30 times a day.

In 9th grade I moved away from that small East Texas town and Michelle and I drifted apart. I would hear things through the grapevine for a couple of years, but by the time I was a senior in high school we were pretty much embarking on different paths. I was heading off to Lubbock and I think she went to Sam Houston or SFA. It wasn't until the fall of my junior year at Tech that I heard from Michelle again. Out of the blue she found me and called me to let me know that she was getting married that summer. We spoke for about an hour talking about our lives now and how excited she was about getting married. She called because she wanted to share in her news and she wanted my address to invite me to her wedding. I was so happy for her and really looking forward to her wedding.

That following July my grandmother called me. She still lived in that small East Texas town and received the newspaper. She would always mail me clippings of my childhood friends whenever they made the paper. When she called me that July morning she asked me if I had heard about Michelle. I was still asleep and thought, "Oh, Michelle's wedding announcement must have hit the paper." I said yes and I knew that she was getting married because she called me in the fall to tell me about it and got my address. That's when the longest silence came over the phone. My grandmother said she didn't know how to tell me this, but Michelle's funeral announcement was in the paper. I was in shock. My grandmother went on to explain that she died from complications from some sort of surgery and the funeral was tomorrow. I was over eight hours away and digesting all the information. I didn't make it to her funeral, and I still regret not going to this day. However, whenever I go back to that small town I always stop by the local flower shop and go by her grave.

It has been over 11 years since she past way. She was only 21 on the verge of her life. So every year on May 2nd, which would have been her 32nd birthday, I think about her. I think about how much life I have lived during that time and how she never had the chance to do the same. How she will never get to walk down an aisle to the man she loves waiting at the end. How she will never get to feel a baby kick in her stomach or hold her child for the first time. I try to keep this in mind on the days that I am stressed to the max. The days that Derek and I are arguing over something stupid, the days that my beloved Daisy keeps bringing mud unto our wood floors over and over again, the nights when Pater doesn't let me sleep and the exhaustion I feel at work some days.

I am so blessed to have the life that I have, and this year was especially hard. I look at my daughter and I couldn't imagine not having her in my life. I couldn't imagine the pain that Michelle's parents went through to lose their baby girl.

There really is no point to this posting other than not to take one day on this earth for granted. To hug your loved ones every day and tell them how much you love them. I sometimes forget to do that, but May 2nd always reminds me that I am blessed to be living the wonderful, hectic, chaotic charming life of mine. Especially when this happened less than a block away from our house on Saturday afternoon.