I am selfish about my thoughts and memories with Summer.
I believe that I am the outward torch carrier at all times…
Thankfully, other people step out and show me that I am not alone in my grief about Summer leaving us. Some of this is now morphing into something else. Now it’s a bit of inspiration.
Mikayla, a friend of Summer from High School got some amazing tattoo art in her memory. Thats permanent!!! Track shoes for her memories with Summer… And a 4-leaf clover because of Summer’s knack for finding them within seconds. It was uncanny.
The art will be a conversation piece for many decades to come. It’s an influence that will travel further I can know or predict.
I always said I would get a tattoo when I had a life-altering moment. I have had that. But I still cannot figure out what I want in a tattoo. The first is the hardest? Message. Placement. Size. Art. Artist. Too many choices for me. I feel like I will know when I know.
A few weeks ago, I had a message from Jennifer. She watched Aiden and Summer for a year or so while we were shuffling through “sitters” eons ago. Her son, Josh was a schoolmate of Summer’s at St. Joseph School (where she completed first through eighth grade) It’s hard to say how much they were friends back then… Boys and girls in grade/middle school have a lot of “ick” between them… But I can tell you that all the kids who go to St. Joe’s are a bit of an extended family. Summer and Aiden were very tight with a lot of kids that they went to school with till 8th grade. Its actually kind of fun to see Aidens friends from St. Joe’s and DeeMack mesh into this hybrid group that makes some kind of sense. I digress.
Josh was reaching out through his mom for one of those pins I had made with the “Sweet Dreams of Summer”. I am not sure I really understood why… But I dug out my bin of stickers, patches, and pins. I still had some!
A few days later I saw the amazing post shown below. Josh was umpiring for a tournament that he played in as a kid and he wore the pin on his lapel for all the games he ‘umped. Again… So blown away to see other kids carrying the torch. Josh said he wanted to use his payment from the last game as a donation to the scholarship fund. Wow. Wow. Wow. When I was his age… I was never this thoughtful. When he handed me the money, I took his address because I want to make sure he gets the letter from the Education Foundation. It’s powerful in its own right.
Friday, Josh and Jenifer stopped by Fort’s and he gave me the donation. That small moment turned into an hour-long conversation about memories from eons ago and how Josh and Summer had been paired as husband and wife in the cast of Seussical the Musical. Thanks to Jen for the pics below. I am so humbled to know that Josh would do this.
Josh has grown a bit… That little kid is now a man… A fine young man.
