Here

It’s those kids that you play with nonstop.  The kids of your parents’ best friends.  The house your mom drops you off at when she needs to go to an appointment so you can play house and get kool-aid smiles and make forts and play dress up and run free instead of being toted around the town.  The house that felt like home.  The kids that felt like siblings and in turn, their parents were your second parents.  The kids you would hide with when your parents said it was time to go because you all knew they would keep visiting.  It’s those kids that define your childhood years.  The running to the barn to feed bottle calves, the carefree playing in the trees on the farm, the hiding in that cool, up-high cupboard in their house...it’s those moments when you first realize the importance of friendship.  It’s those moments you don’t ever forget. 

And, when you are little and eating your lunch on a blanket in their living room, you don’t ever imagine, ever dream that one day the friend sitting next to you, the girl you completely idolize and look up to, will be gone.

Gone at the age of thirteen because of a car accident.  An accident that put the word death into our young and innocent lives.  The event that shook us all to the core because, for the first time, we weren’t carefree anymore.  The time that took a sister away from her two brothers and a friend away from me, my brother, and many others. 

I will never forget my mom coming downstairs to wake my brother and I up early the morning after it happened.  She pulled me into my brother’s room and through teary eyes explained that three of the kids who were a life beat in our childhood had been in a car accident and that Missi didn’t make it.  I remember my little eleven year old self just thinking that it couldn’t be so.  And, then I looked up at my mom and knew that yes, it was true and her pain was the pain felt of a mom who lost one of the kids who was a stitch in her life; a girl she loved like her own.  It was when I walked upstairs that morning and saw my dad completely beside himself wracked with grief that I once again realized, yes, this is real.  My parents will be comforting their best friends as they deal with the loss of their daughter.  My little baby sister will become a saving grace to that second set of parents with her belly laughs, chubby cheeks, and toddler ways.  And, the days of the rest of us playing house, making forts, dressing up, and running free would be forever tainted with the loss of an intricate part of that childhood.

When Missi’s mom hugged me that morning I felt as if my heart would break.  And, probably, a part of it did.  Because, it’s those kids you play with nonstop and the house that felt like home and the parents that felt like parents and the running to the barn with the wind whipping our hair and the memories of all of those things that play a vital role in defining a childhood and when a piece of that is so tragically taken away, the invincibility of childhood is taken away with it.

It’s been sixteen years today since that car accident.  The accident that claimed the physical life of a thirteen year old girl.  I can’t help but always think whenever my brother has passed a milestone in his life like graduating high school and college, getting married, and having his own children...Missi should be doing this too.  And, whenever the little brother Wade and I had major moments in our lives, I always think...Missi should see this.  And, when I see the big brother Darick with his two beautiful children, I always think...Missi should be here with us.   

Then, I remember she is.