The words brought shock and grief. The pain was strong and deep. At first she could not think, the only thing that came to mind was, no, not him, not Jimmy. A few minutes went by and her thoughts began to race. He can't be gone, I saw him only two days ago, and he was so full of life then. She began grabbing at all the memories she had of him. The first time she met him, that song he sang during team-building activities, worship up on the hill and when he signed her shirt "Jimmy O Jack". She had laughed then.
That night when she went to bed, she laid there and cried. Questions filled her mind, How can he be dead? Why did it have to be Jimmy? Why didn't I talk him more? Did I ever actually say goodbye to him?
In the days that followed she would sometimes find herself thinking, Was it just a bad dream? I know it's not but, oh, how I wish it was. She couldn't quite figure out why she missed him so much, she hardly even knew him.
The months flew by, and she thought still thought of Jimmy every day. Soon it was March, TeenPact was right around the corner she was excited to get to see her friends again. When they arrived at the capitol, and she first saw Rachel, she thought, oh, that's Jimmy's sister. The day drew to a close and they went to the barracks. When it was time for rendezvous she was in Rachel's group. When they had to "rate their day" she rated it a 5, she'd had a good day, but there was the underlying sadness of how the day had made her think so much of Jimmy, she still missed him.
Tuesday afternoon during free time she was walking around with Rachel and Shelby. At one point she noticed a picture of Jimmy on Rachel's phone. She wanted to talk to her, tell her how much Jimmy had impacted her life, and how she missed him. But how can I tell her that? I only knew Jimmy for one week, and Jimmy is her brother, she's known him all her life. She might think it's weird that I miss him. So she didn't say anything.
That night during worship she found herself fighting back tears. The last time she had been with a group like this and singing, it had been on hill in the woods and Jimmy had been the one leading worship. She looked over at Rachel and thought that she saw tears in Rachel's eyes. She wanted to give her a hug, tell her what she had been afraid to tell her earlier that day. But she was still afraid.
The next day went by fast and she had wondered all day if Rachel would tell the rendezvous group about Jimmy. Rachel did tell the rendezvous group about Jimmy, and showed everyone the picture of him that was on her phone. As she looked at the picture on Rachel's phone, her eyes filled with tears. She fought them back. Why does just seeing his picture make me so sad? Rachel prayed and as she got up to go to bed the tears started running down her cheeks. When she got to her bunk she was sobbing, she turned around to see Rachel standing there. Rachel hugged her, she stood there hugging Rachel and crying onto Rachel's shoulder.
"What's the matter?" Rachel said.
"It's just......your brother....I hardly knew him....but" she choked out between sobs.
"Do you want to talk?"
"It's late, we should probably go to bed....maybe we can talk tomorrow"
Rachel had to leave to get ready for bed. She turned around, Shelby had been standing there too. Shelby hugged her as she cried more. When she went to bed sobs shook her for a while before she fell asleep.
She didn't get to talk to Rachel, the next day was busy and she never got around to it. Soon TeenPact was over and she had to say goodbye to all of her friends. She found it painful to say goodbye to Rachel and Shelby.
Over the next month she thought many times about how she wished she would have talked to Rachel that night. And even though they kept in touch she never had the courage to bring it up again. As the days passed she still missed Jimmy just as much as before. When she was talking to one of her friends about it, one of the things her friend said was "cherish the memories". So she wrote a poem, about memories. It eased the pain to write her thoughts.
This is kind of a summary of some of what has been going on in my life from July 31st til now. I'm not all that good at writing. I found it was easier to write in third person. ~ Sarah
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