Memorial Day Weekend

I'm spending Memorial Day weekend in Birmingham and that's probably a good thing since the weather at the beach (Alabama Gulf Coast and the Florida Panhandle) is quite nasty with lots of rain and wind. Two years ago I spent the holidiay weekend in Gulf Shores/Orange Beach with friends and had a fabulous time. We did all of the things that one does at the beach...lying on the beach, shopping, eating, laughing, and going out at night. What was so special about that? Well, things just came together perfectly. I saw Mac McAnally in concert at Lulu's on Saturday night and heard Brent Burns at Tacky Jacks 2 on Sunday night. Mac, who has written number one country single "Down the Road" and sings it with Kenny Chesney, is now becoming a "household name". Brent's career is also taking off. I'm very happy for both of them.

I really think that weekend was so special because I had just gone through a rough couple of months. On March 14, 2007, I was laid off at work. The company that I was with was having financial problems and let about 1/3 of its staff go and unfortunately I was one of them. Then my mother who is elderly started having some health problems and was hospitalized. She lives in Cullman and I was having to divide my time between taking care of her and looking for a job. I never told Mama that I had been laid off because she didn't need to know that. To make matters worse, an aunt died and one of my best friends tragically died.

My aunt was old and had been sick for a while. However, the friend was just a little older than me. We met when we lived next door to each other in the Tutwiler dorm at the University of Alabama. Through Amy, I met her sister Sandy who was a year younger than me. Sandy and I ended up getting an apartment together with another friend and our season tickets for the football games are together. Amy was a very troubled individual with her many struggles in life arising out of an addiction to alcohol. She had been in a number of detox programs, but never would admit that she really had a problem and would always go back to drinking. She did a lot of things that I didn't approve of and at times I couldn't be friends with her. The last time she was in a detox program was around 2005/2006, and this time she appeared to have really kicked the habit. I was very proud of her and told her so. However, in early 2007 I suspected that she was drinking again. Then one Saturday night in March when I was dealing with Mama and job hunting, I received a call from a mutual friend of her sister's and mine telling me that Amy had been found dead in her apartment. Liquor bottles were on the coffee table. She had apparently passed out and choked on her own vomit. Was there anything that I could have done to prevent her death? If I had been a better friend would she have died?

Because the economy was good and I'm in a good field (Information Technology), I was able to get a job with an increase in pay, better job title, and with less stress. Mama got better. However, I was still haunted by Amy's death. She loved the ocean and her ashes were sprinkled over the Gulf of Mexico, something she had always indicated that she wanted.

My trip to Gulf Shores/Orange Beach that Memorial Day weekend was my first trip to the beach since before her death. Before I left town for the weekend, I wrote her a good-bye letter and had it laminated in plastic. I then dropped the letter into the gulf at the Perdido Pass bridge. During the weekend I came to grips with her death and knew that God was taking care of her. She's with her Mom and Dad, and she's also holding and loving that special little girl or boy that she never held or loved while on this earth.

So, Memorial Day Weekend 2007 was a weekend where I was able to put some unpleasant things behind me and emerge as a much stronger and hopefully better person. I cried a little and laughed a lot, made some new friends, and strengthened my relationship with some old friends. I also kinda had my fifteen minutes of fame during that weekend. I would rather not talk about that because it's one of the things that happened in Gulf Shores and I prefer it to stay in Gulf Shores.

Have a great Memorial Day Weekend, everyone!