Mikeys Marble

I visit Facebook a few times a day.  A lot less now that I have something else blogging to waste my day away better my time with.

The other day when I logged on I received a notification that I had 1 friend suggestion.  I'm always immediately curious when I see these notifications and right away my brain starting flipping through names of people I hadn't seen in awhile and who I hadn't already found on Facebook.

 I clicked on the link excited to see who it was.

I stared at the name on my screen. My fingers frozen, hovering slightly above the keys of my laptop.  I looked at the name again then at the picture.

All at once I was 12 again, riding down the familiar country road that I grew up on.  Although we were in the country the road was considered a busy road.  We had just left my house and we were making our way down to a friend of ours.  "Car", I heard his squeaky voice call to me from behind.  I slowed down a bit and steered slightly to the shoulder so that the car could pass us safely.

The car passed us and Mikey sped ahead of me, standing up on his bike and screaming, "No hands!".
I shuck my head at him as he passed, secretly wishing I had the courage to pull the same stunt.

His little rat tail was blowing behind him as he crossed back and forth across the road.

We were heading off to our normal every day summer fun. Every day of that summer anyway.  

That was the summer I spent with Mikey.

We were off to ride along the old railroad trails.  They were smooth and shaded. We would ride for hours.  That day we rode much further then we had expected, the time just getting away from us.  As we sped back towards home already late for dinner, peddling as fast as we could and our butts sore from the long ride, I remember laughing with him.

Boy, he could make me laugh.

At the end of that summer Mikey moved away.  He started school somewhere else.

A few years later I ran into him at a local billiard hall.  He had grown taller then me.  He addressed me as "Shorty".  We talked for awhile that night...well laughed mostly.

I should have been happy to see the friend suggestion
excited even
but I wasn't.  

I was crying.

Not long after laughing with him that last time Mikey was killed in a car accident. 

The accident occurred on slick roads.  His cousin, the driver, passed another car at a high speed and lost control of the car while trying to cut back into their lane.  The news article I saved reads, "The passenger door was ripped from the car and laid carelessly on the north side of the road.  The tree which finally stopped their fast traveling car was literally inside of the vehicle." 

Mikey was the passenger and he was pronounced dead at the scene. I always wondered if he suffered any pain.

I don't remember the reason behind it but that summer he had given me a clear marble with a green and yellow swirl inside of it.  I wish I could remember exactly why he had given it to me but whatever the reason, I still have it.  I have it inside one of my storage totes containing Christmas decorations.  I take it out of the velvet bag each Christmas and hold it in my hand.  I do that and I remember him.  I remember him zooming by me on his bike that summer day, his little rat tail flapping, his smile and the way I laughed with him.


Mikey died when he was 17.  He was a young man full of ambition, hope and a million ways to make you laugh. 

I was 16 when I attended his wake and blessed his soul.  It was one of the first funerals I ever went to.

The page on Facebook was created so that there would be a place to go and share memories. To remember him. 

I found it difficult to accept the friend request because it doesn't matter how much we WISH for some things, they just aren't going to come true.  That day, as I sat staring at his picture, I wished a million times for him to be on the other end of that request.

Maybe he is.

So, I am now a friend of Mikey's memory.  I sort of like thinking of it that way.  Sort of.

Thinking of Mikey brings to mind the whole "A reason, A season or a Lifetime" poem.

When people come into your life for a SEASON, it is because your turn has come to share, grow, or learn.  They may bring you an experience of peace or  

make you laugh.  

They may teach you something you have never done.  They usually give you an unbelievable amount of joy.  

Believe it!  It is real!  But, only for a season.

I only spent a summer with him but it was one of the best summers I ever had while I was growing up.


That summer I laughed so hard I cried.


That day...staring at his photo on Facebook


I cried until I began to laugh.

R.I.P. Mikey