This is what I remember….

I woke up thinking about Aubrey today.

 

One afternoon I went out in the back yard to check on the both of them and there they sat looking like this!

Oh the mind of a child…”Let’s fill our t-shirts up with as much sand as they will hold…that will be so much fun.”

The were both having so much fun and laughing, giggling and having the time of there lives.

The damage had already been done so I just let them keep going. Afterwards I made them strip off their shirts and gave them a good rinse with the hose!

Here they are nice and clean sitting side by side in the same folding chair!

When we loose people we care deeply about it seems almost impossible to think that a year has gone by without them being in the world.

Logan was born in 1995 and Aubrey was born in 1996 so I am sure that Logan does not have a childhood memory that does not include Aubrey in it. They grew up together and they played with each other almost every day.

I remember working away in my kitchen and I would hear the playroom door open and close and I would turn expecting to see one of my own children coming in and instead there stood Aubrey. There was such a familiarity and sense of family that he could not tell the difference between my house and his own house. He would just walk in and wander into my kitchen and say “Hey Miss Robin what ya doing? Where’s Logan”

How many peanut butter and jelly sandwiches did I fix for the both of them, how many pop-sickles did I hand out, how many squabbles did I mediate, how many bottles of bubbles did I hand out….

One day when my girl child was probably about three or four years old she went missing. We had the entire neighborhood out looking for her. The very first thing we did was begin the search over at Aubrey’s house. We did not find her. After a few minutes Aubrey’s grandpa said “I’m going to go look one more time in the house.” He went into Aubrey’s room and did a deeper investigation. He noticed a very small shoe sticking out from Aubrey’s bed. She had crawled up there to play with all the stuffed toys that were stored there and fallen asleep. She was hidden under a pile of fuzzy animals and we could not see her.

When Aubrey got to be a bit older he got in the habit of coming over in the afternoons. He would knock on the front door. By this time we had finally driven the message home with both of them that they did in fact have to knock before entering each others houses. Anyway he would come over and sometimes he would just knock on the door just to enquire what I was doing. We would sit in the living room and just talk about what he had done that day or sometime we would sit on the front step and have a chat about what he was planning to do the next day or what was going on in with him. He was usually always in some kind of class, karate or some sport. He spent a lot of time with his uncles so there was always something fun they were going to do, riding their four wheelers or something of that nature.

He was the sweetest boy, there was always a ‘Yes mama” and a please and thank you. He was one of the most thoughtful children I ever knew. One afternoon he had come over to see if Logan could play. I can’t remember where she was but she was not available and we began to have our afternoon chat. He shared with me that he had just learned how to fix scrambled egg and he had just prepared him some for supper. I began joking and teasing him asking him,

“You made scrambled eggs and didn’t bring me any!!!”

“I ate them all miss Robin!” he said and we giggled about it and he went on home. The next afternoon there came a knock at my front door and I opened it up and there stood Aubrey with a small Tupperware container full of scrambled eggs. He handed it to me and said “Here ya go miss Robin. I made them just for you!”

We lived next door to them for a very long time, almost 24 years. I am thankful that my daughter had that experience of having a wonderful childhood friend. They played together through out their entire growing up years.

Sadly we moved away from the neighborhood in 2006 so Logan and Aubrey were not able to see each other on a regular basis.

Regret is always recognized in hindsight, how many times did we plan to call Aubrey or make arrangements for a visit and didn’t?

Life happens and then one day that person is no longer with us.

I miss him terribly and I know my daughter misses him as well.

Please pray for Aubrey’s mom and those that loved him. I know that today will be a very difficult day as they remember their sweet boy!