Month: August 2024

Tessa recently got her drivers license and it reminded me of the time my mom got so irritated she hollered at my dad. Not yelled, hollered, which was a rarity, in fact that was the one time I ever heard her raise her voice.

Yes, it had to do with me driving, or learning to drive.

My dad was working on his car in the front entry way of the property, right in front of the fence that went around the yard around the house.

He had the hood up and I was walking past on my way to Tammi’s house. Not an unusual occurrence, but this time my dad stopped me and said he needed my help.

He asked me to get in the car and rev the engine, he was working on something and needed someone to do that so he could check the timing chain.

I said ok and hopped in, instead of the car being in neutral, it was in reverse. I stepped on that gas and went through the fence. Mom flew out of the house and just hollered, DRIVERS ED! And went back in.

Dad and I looked at each other and he just said well I guess that settles that.

Apparently this had been a bone of contention, mom wanting me to take Drivers Ed at school and dad saying he could teach me.

So to Drivers Ed I went, when the time came I did pass my drivers test. Well, sort of, I didn’t parallel park, but the tester was a friend of dad’s and said I would never need that anyway. 

I will never forget, though, mother flying out of that door, I had never seen that side of her, but when she put her foot down, we all listened. 

I miss them every day, I really miss her wisdom, her gentleness and quiet humor. I miss my dads booming laugh, his intelligence, his love of learning and I miss his love of life. I miss their unwavering belief in God, their pure faith and the way they lived their lives. God, family, country, it was inspiring and left and indelible mark on their whole family.

There is a movie, Peggy Sue Got Married, it is about a woman going to her high school reunion and she has a medical event and seemingly time travels back to when she was actually in high school.

I think about that a lot, if I could time travel and go back to one time period in my life, what time would I go.

I would go back to the summer between my sophomore and junior year of high school.

It was a fun, innocent time, lazy days spent laying out getting a tan with Tammi, watching soap opera’s every day, starting with Ryan’s Hope and ending with The Edge of Night. 

Picking vegetables out of the garden, from green beans to corn and digging potatoes. Then sitting next to my mom and snapping green beans. Trips to Wagner, OK for peaches, for canning and freezing.

With my brothers and sister coming over to help with that as well, my nephews and niece being there. The laughter, the pure fun, Friday night skate adventures, a simple time. Just one day, just to hear my dad laugh and my mom whistle, that would be enough for me.

I know, without one doubt I will get to hear both of those things one day. However, that knowledge does not stop me from missing it now.

Today is Jeffrey Andrew’s Birthday, and honestly it is hard to believe it has been 39 years since the day he was born. He was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma, in a pink hospital, St Francis to be exact. There wasn’t a name back then to describe what Jeffrey was to me. But there is a name today, he was my rainbow baby. I just knew he was a gift that was hard won.

Even after he was born it was rocky, he was born with water on his lungs and taken right into the NICU. Where he stayed for six days, those were some of the longest days of my life. I had to go home without him, fun fact, we were between homes and living with my cousin Cindy, it was a nice place to be able to land. I honestly don’t know how I would have handled it without her and being able to talk to her.

We brought Jeffrey home to Cindy and Mark’s home, we were waiting for our house to be built. 

I will tell you this story and maybe a lot of parents can relate to a sleep deprived story. 

I was nursing Jeffrey and the hospital did not tell me they were supplementing with formula, so when we brought him home it was a nightmare situation. I would literally feed him for an hour, he would scream for an hour then wake up and do the whole thing over again.

One night Jeff told me to go to sleep and he would hold him for that hour he was screaming. 

The next thing I know I am waking up to Jeffrey screaming and Jeff frantically looking for him. He had fallen asleep and was yelling that he had killed the baby because he fell asleep and could not remember putting him in the bassinet.

So here we were tearing up the bed looking for Jeffrey, and he is just screaming his head off. All of a sudden I stopped and said wait, if he’s dead he couldn’t scream. Then I looked in the bassinet, there he was, I started to feed and Jeff said he had had enough. He got dressed and went to the store and bought a can of formula. 

We made a bottle and Jeffrey drank 6 ounces and slept for over 7 hours. He was starving, he was used to that bottle after me feeding him and he was not getting enough to eat.

Sleep deprivation is a real thing, he was fine and then finer after the formula. 

Jeffrey I love you so much, and as much as I miss the little you, I love the man you have become. 

I hope you have the birthday you deserve, you are an incredible man, father, brother, son and husband to your wife Amanda. 

I pray that your life is everything you ever wanted and more.

Happy Birthday Son! I love you so much!

This past Saturday evening, all of a sudden, I thought about my first high school boyfriend and I wondered how he was doing. I very literally have not thought of him in decades. So, I did what any sane person would do, I googled him.

Turns out he is dead, he died two years ago in 2022, to say I was shocked is an understatement. He was just a few months older than I am.

I tried to find an obituary and could not, the funeral home posted a notification of death and said there was no obituary.

I became curious, did he leave a wife, children, I know of at least one brother, is he still alive. Did he leave friends, cousins, anyone that cared about him. 

I flew to the book of faces to see if I could find him, I did, it’s pretty locked down, but I could see one picture of him. Two likes and one comment from a woman that looks to be a relative.

There were no I miss you’s, no other interaction, the last picture was from 2021, a year before he passed.

I went back to the funeral home website, only one person wrote on his memorial page. 

Arthur Kent King, we met at Tulsa Vo-Tech, he was loud, obnoxious and it was instant teenage love. He was from Broken Arrow so it was perfect as I did not want to date anyone from Owasso. My family was too entrenched in Owasso, I wanted someone no one knew.

He was perfect, we argued, made up, fought, laughed and both loved OU. 

A perfect teenage union, I remember the last time we fought, it was for good, we were over. I went home and cried buckets over that boy. He was the love of my teenage heart.

I would go on to marry and have children and forget about him in any capacity except for a sweet memory. 

We were in Photo-Offset Lithography together, his family owned a print shop, among other things. He told me his mom was a doctor and his dad owned businesses, construction, print shop and other things.

My family did not own those things, we were not equal economically, but we were equals intellectually and both fluid in sarcasm.

I don’t really know what his home life was like but I do remember one story he told us, mainly because as a class we forced him to.

He came to school completely bruised up one day, I mean from head to toe. We were all shocked and wanted to know what happened. Who had he angered with his sarcasm and argumentative way.

After much brow beating he told us the tale.

His dad had told him to do something and Kent (we all called him Kent) said you do it. I don’t know about y’all but those would have been fighting words in my home and apparently they were in his as well.

Anyway he said his dad looked at him and said oh do you think you are man enough to say that in my house?

Then Kent bowed up at him and his dad, having been a middleweight boxer in the army, went and got boxing gloves from a closet.

Then they went into the backyard and his dad said this is your chance, do your worst. Needless to say Kent never got a lick in and his dad taught him a life lesson. Obey your parents, it’s their house, not yours and watch your mouth.

I am saddened by the lack of care and lack of an obituary, everyone deserves at least an accounting of their life. I hope he died surrounded by loved ones and that they keep his memory alive.

I may never know what happened and why he died at such a young age, and yes, 58 is young. 

I’ll always remember him as my great teenage love.