8 years.
8 years ago I felt the first sting of life. My first encounter with loving and losing. It was my 16th birthday, and I was just coming home from going to the local community college to sign up for my running start classes. My mother came down the stairs sobbing and I knew something terrible had happened.
My friend. My heart. The man I was sure I was going to marry...had disappeared. Well, not like he just fell off the face of the planet. But he, his 2 cousins, and their grandfather had taking a little boat out for fishing just off the coast of La Push...their boat capsized and no one knew where they were.
A week later they found 3 of the 4 bodies. Including that of my dear James Starr.
I was much younger than James. But that didn't keep me from hoping. We worked together every Thursday and Friday night, as janitors for my uncle and his father's cleaning company. My first job...
He had always treated me special. Much differently than any of the horrible people I mostly surrounded myself with at the time. He was a breath of fresh air, and one of the kindest people I had ever met. Everything about him glowed with the Lord. There was nothing I could ask that he wouldn't do...even drive me all the way home after work...to Mead....when he lived in the valley past 35th. And when I told him I had feelings for him...instead of making me feel awkward and rejected...he just smiled at me and said..."We'll see..." Or when he told me I was beautiful in German, but made me go find out what it meant. Which took me a week. haha ~Sigh~
There are many stories of how this man captured my heart. But really, what good does it do? That was not the path the Lord had for me. But never will his memory leave my mind. And I will always be grateful for the beautiful legacy he left behind; the many lives that he touched.
And the heart he left behind...
8 years ago I felt the first sting of life. My first encounter with loving and losing. It was my 16th birthday, and I was just coming home from going to the local community college to sign up for my running start classes. My mother came down the stairs sobbing and I knew something terrible had happened.
My friend. My heart. The man I was sure I was going to marry...had disappeared. Well, not like he just fell off the face of the planet. But he, his 2 cousins, and their grandfather had taking a little boat out for fishing just off the coast of La Push...their boat capsized and no one knew where they were.
A week later they found 3 of the 4 bodies. Including that of my dear James Starr.
I was much younger than James. But that didn't keep me from hoping. We worked together every Thursday and Friday night, as janitors for my uncle and his father's cleaning company. My first job...
He had always treated me special. Much differently than any of the horrible people I mostly surrounded myself with at the time. He was a breath of fresh air, and one of the kindest people I had ever met. Everything about him glowed with the Lord. There was nothing I could ask that he wouldn't do...even drive me all the way home after work...to Mead....when he lived in the valley past 35th. And when I told him I had feelings for him...instead of making me feel awkward and rejected...he just smiled at me and said..."We'll see..." Or when he told me I was beautiful in German, but made me go find out what it meant. Which took me a week. haha ~Sigh~
There are many stories of how this man captured my heart. But really, what good does it do? That was not the path the Lord had for me. But never will his memory leave my mind. And I will always be grateful for the beautiful legacy he left behind; the many lives that he touched.
And the heart he left behind...
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