This mama wants nothing more than to remember sweet times and memories as July 27 arrives again. Two weeks ago, my sister Karen was cleaning and found a copy of John Michael’s resume from his junior year of high school and brought it to me.  At first a tear started to slowly fall, but quickly I began to smile while reading how much he had accomplished by his 16th birthday.  A tough summer as my daddy passed on June 14, 2000.  John Michael loved my parents so much that he said if anything ever happened to Skip and me, he didn’t want to live with my younger siblings and their families….. he wanted to live with Grandma and PaPa.  Three days after my daddy’s service, we put John Michael on a plane in Knoxville, Tennessee, as he headed out for a month touring England, Wales, and Scotland with Student Ambassadors. Sweet memories flood my brain today:

• Getting a phone call from Betty Creson at the bank – “John Michael’s account is overdrawn.”  When he called a few days later, and we asked him how in the world he could be overdrawn, he began to tell us how every time they stayed in a hotel, he would send his dirty clothes to the hotel laundry instead of waiting for a homestay visit or the youth hostel.  Then, he proceeded to say his suitcase had burst from all the presents he was buying – he bought for almost everyone in his extended family (especially coffee and chocolate for Grandma from the famous “Betty’s” out of London).
• Fast-forward to his first week at OU – “I met the nicest lady at the dry cleaners – I took my laundry, along with my dry cleaning, and they folded my towels so neatly.  She says I can bring both my dry cleaning and laundry every week and she will send you a bill every month” – yes, that was my son.
• High school junior year:  “John Michael, I thought I told you to buy a Great Value brand for the groceries you were buying for the Student Council Christmas box to help needy families – and, did you notice how much you spent?”  “But, Mama, we buy name brand on that peanut butter – they would like Jiffy better, too, – and, I just bought all the things you buy on your Christmas grocery list.”
• Returning from so many school activities:  “John Michael, how did you spend so much money?”  “But, Mama, I thought _____ needed this, also.”
• John Michael never missed an opportunity to mow an elderly person’s yard, to buy another gift for his grandma, or to help a friend or a stranger.  He always had a job – but most of them, even in college, didn’t pay much, if anything.  He just loved helping people. In high school, he would give me a list a mile long of whom he wanted me to make Poppy Seed bread for…… custodians at school and especially “Mr. John Henry and Mrs. Hilda” who cleaned at the Courthouse where he worked during high school. I received letters from them all after he passed, speaking of his kindness.
• His infectious smile and chuckle……. How blessed I was to be his Mama.

Life is fleeting; the one constant in life is our ability to make a choice each and every day of how we face the world.  I’ve chosen to prayerfully meet the day head on, to honor John Michael’s memory by trying to make a difference in someone’s life.  Am I always successful?  No, but, I’ll never give up on my goal. I read Mitch Albom’s book Stranger in the Lifeboat this year.  And, I quote:

“When someone passes, people always ask, ‘Why did God take them?’ A better question would be ‘Why did God give them to us?’ What did we do to deserve their love, their joy, the sweet moments we shared? ….. Beginnings and endings are earthly ideas. I go on. And because I go on, you go on with me. Feeling loss is part of why you are on Earth. Through it, you appreciate the brief gift of human existence, and you learn to cherish the world I created for you. But the human form is not permanent. It was never meant to be. That gift belongs to the soul. “

May all of us cherish this world and the “moments we share.”