She would have been 43......

She would have been 43 today.  She was born on October 13th, 1967, on Friday October 13th, to be exact.

A fact that my mother reminded her jokingly all her life.  They named her Michelle White. They gave her no 

middle name, just a first and a last. Strong and simple.  She always said she wished her middle name was 

Grace like our grandmother and so my first born's middle name is Grace in her memory.  She grew up 

in the same little town that we all did, but she was special, better, and different than all of us.  She was 

beautiful from the day she was born till the day that she passed.  She had a smile that would light up a room 

and a glare that would melt the surface of the sun if you incurred her anger.  She made friends as easy as 

anyone I know and could push them aside just as quick. She had a gift, some of the older folks call it 

prophecy, where she knew immediately if you were genuine or full of it (as my father would say) just by 

looking in your eyes.  I remember she once made an issue of a choir director at our church that required a 

meeting of the deacons in which she enraged him and mocked him so much I'm told that he had to be 

restrained from coming across a table at her.  Three weeks later the church discovered he was making 1-800 

calls and promptly let him go.  She knew though.  She absolutely and I mean absolutely had to have the last 

word in a conversation.  I recall many times in conversations with my parents, my father telling her to be quiet 

and not say another word, he begin to walk away and she'd say "Fine I won't say that you're wrong", or "I 

didn't say anything in the first place", and it'd start all over again.  She was the most stubborn person I've ever 

met in my life and if you know my family, that's saying alot.  I never and I mean never saw her flinch or budge 

if she thought she was right and her cause was just.  I sometimes envy that of her as I've gotten older.  As 

much as you could love her, she still had a distance about her that only made you want to try harder to gain 

her love or approval.  My last memory of her was fixing her car the day she passed.  I know she was loved as 

the registry tells us there were over 600 people that came to pay their respects and if I remember correctly 

over a hundred cars in the funeral procession.  We all should be hope to have such a send off.

I've wondered about her alot in the last several years, what she would have accomplished, what she might 

have looked like at our age.  I imagine she'd be just as pretty, her face slightly worn over the years but still 

with a smile that would soften the hardest heart and most likely a wisdom of the years that many seek and few 

receive. I also imagined she'd have done things her own way, regardless of the consequences.  I wonder if 

she'd be proud of my accomplishments and ashamed of my failings.  I suppose even now I still seek her 

approval.  Some things never change and never will.  The only thing I know for sure is she'd be 43 today and 

I've missed her for the last 23 years.