In six days, I will be attending my 10 Year Class Reunion. In these days, I will take the opportunity to look back on ten of my favorite elements of high school (in no particular order of importance)…

#6 – Life outside school

High school days do indeed always seem to focus on what happens within the confines of “high school life.” But as I look back on those four years, I see many things in my personal life — life outside of school — that changed dramatically.

* My brother got married. November 1995.

My first semester of high school, my older brother got married. Definitely a transition for me! He’d gone to technical school out of high school, so its not like he’d never been away from home. But it was still going to prove to be a big change. He had been that one dear friend that had always been there my whole life. Believe it or not, he and I really never — or at least very rarely — fought like most siblings do. We had a mutual respect and admiration from the beginning.

Now, he’d never be across the house any more, and in that respect I was a little sad that day. However, in my heart I knew he was starting a new chapter of his life, and I was genuinely happy for him… for them both!

The wedding was beautiful, and the day a blur. It was my first time being a bridesmaid, and I was still a newbie to high heels. THAT could have been a disaster, but thankfully all went smoothly. Many wonderful memories exist from that day, and I cherish them all.

The long and short of it all, though, my family changed right after my high school career started. And I wouldn’t trade that change for anything…

* My first concert, Fan Fair, & Nashville. 1997.

My Sophomore year, I dipped my toes into what would eventually become my whole life… only I didn’t know it then.

On Feb. 14, 1997, a friend and I went to see Thrasher Shiver, Ricochet and Bryan White. I admit. I was one of those girls who was madly in love with Bryan White, and I was on cloud nine the whole night. On top of it all, I had scored floor seats. We were only maybe 15 rows from the stage. I had a BLAST and was pretty much hooked.

That summer, my parents and I made the trip to Nashville to attend Fan Fair. My very first visit to Nashville, and we all remember my saying, “Wow, I feel like I just came home. I’m going to live here some day.”

What do you know? I do now!

The funny thing is, there are big parts of Nashville I just don’t remember. We drove down Broadway, and we went to the Ryman. I remember the Ryman but not Broadway. Fan Fair was still held out at the fair grounds, which I thought was fantastic. It was all centrally located, and easy to go from the live shows all day to the booths. I laugh now as I go through photos from those days… the people that I snapped photos of that I now know personally. Or the ones that were so big back then that are now long ago forgotten.

I stood in line for hours on end to meet Bryan White! We took a tour of homes, and we saw where multiple stars lived at that time. I remember being enthralled with tour buses. Today? A bus is a bus, and my husband co-drives them.

My how times changed. I guess you could say, though, that the trip to Nashville was a glimpse into the future, and on some level I knew that. But had you asked me seriously that last night before we drove home, and we sat in the audience of the Grand Ole Opry, “Will you be watching your husband on that stage some day, while standing backstage?” I’d have laughed and said no…

…and I’d have been wrong.

* My nephew was born. October 1997.

First comes love. Then comes marriage. Then come baby in a baby carriage!

Stands to reason that after my brother got married my freshman year, that there would be a good chance I’d have a niece or nephew by the time I graduated. Sure enough, fall of my Junior year, my nephew made his appearance to this world.

Now, he came into this world early. Premature, he was smaller than the Elmo doll that sat in his baby bed. He spent weeks of his life in NICU where family could come visit after putting on a gown and scrubbing up carefully. He started day one of his life fighting. He started day one as the light of many of our lives.

I still remember New Years Eve 1998. My parents and I baby sat him for the night, and he had to wear a heart monitor around his little chest. If it shifted too much, it would go off with a beep that would make him stir.

We eventually opted to take the monitor off so he could sleep, but I remember hardly sleeping a wink. I was constantly getting up to check on him. I could watch him sleep for hours and never get tired of it. A living and breathing miracle from God.

To fast forward a little past high school years, around age four or five, he was diagnosed with Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy. He’ll never play sports, and while he can still walk, he has a wheelchair to use when he gets too tired and sore to walk anymore. Swimming, go-cart riding and fishing are among his favorite activities. He’s a Tenderfoot in Boy Scouts, and he just started to play saxophone in the band. He’s a straight-A student.

He is my biggest hero. Like I said, from Day One he entered this world as a fighter. And fought he has. He gets frustrated when he trips and falls. And I know he probably gets picked on at school now and then. He never lets it get him down. He’s a local spokesman for MDA, and this weekend he’s appearing on the telethon.

He teaches everyone he knows about Muscular Dystrophy and MDA. But more than that… he teaches everyone to not give up. To keep your head up. That just because you can’t do one thing, it doesn’t mean give up. It means find that thing you are good at, and give that thing your all.

I really believe God never gives us more than we can handle. And my nephew handles something this big with such grace and optimism… he’s one of the strongest people I know.  Him… his mom… his dad… his sister. I admire them more than they will ever know.

* My grandpa passed away. December 1997.

My grandma on my mom’s side passed away long before I was born. So growing up, I only knew my grandparents on my dad’s side, and then Grandpa on my mom’s side. So, don’t think it weird when I say that in December 1997, I lost my first grandparent.

This was a man that rode a bicycle around town into at least his 70s. I remember going to visit him and my brother and I would get softballs, baseball, tennis balls, golf balls, whatever we wanted that he had collected on his travels through town. We would go every few weekends and take Grandpa to church, then go out to eat. It was a nice familial routine we had for years. I miss that sometimes still today.

Grandpa had been in a nursing home for awhile already and his health started to go downhill in ’97. He had already beaten throat cancer, and when he passed away at 91 he could say he had lived a life of hard work.

Somewhere, a photo does exist of my grandpa, my mom, my brother and my nephew… four generations together. We were lucky to get that photo, as my nephew was only two months old when Grandpa passed away.

Death is never easy, but its a part of life. There are many people who have never had to deal with a loved one passing away, and while they are very lucky… I think that’s a key lesson in life that needs to be learned. It helps to respect life and to cherish every day… every hour… every minute we have with our loved ones.