1998

1998 was an especially hard year for me. It was a year full of emotion, growth, change and it's where my relationship with God really became important to me. I was in 9th grade at Albion Middle school, I had great friends and I was loving school, well being with my friends at school, (I can't say I really ever loved the scholastic aspect of school.) In April my cousin, my beautiful cousin, Mandi Mele died in a TRAGIC car accident at the age of 17. Not only was it a tragic accident, but a tragic moment for me in my life. She and I were close, and I looked up to her! She had just spent a couple of weeks at our house the summer she was 15 and ever since then we wrote letters and planned the next time we were to see each other. I remember she "fell in love" with my neighbor, who was more like a brother to me, Tyler Thomas. I wish she chose friends like him in her town, maybe then she would have still been here.

Her and her friend snuck out of the house and took a car, an uninsured car, and went to a party. They got drunk and drove home...went driving. They got in an accident and they both died. It was devastating, not just to me but to the whole family and a whole town.

That was when my relationship with God was all of the sudden really, really important to me. I needed to know where she was and if she was OK. I needed to believe in a purpose and a plan. At her funeral I just sat there remembering how when we were at our Great Grandpa Hanna's funeral , a couple of years earlier, she held my hand through the service and I truly felt her there.


That year turned out to be a crappy year for the Hanna family. Not long, 1 month later, my Great Grandma Barker died. This one not as jarring, it some how felt comforting knowing and believing that she was with Mandi. Then tragedy struck again when my dad's mother, Grandma Carol and her husband (not my grandpa) died in a car accident. I mean, really. Then my sisters friends dad passed away leaving 4 young kids. It was all a bit much. (2000 wasn't much better)

These events really shaped me into the person that I am today. I didn't party in high school, like I might have, if it weren't for the lessons I learned that year. I gained a true understanding that the decisions you make in your life DIRECTLY effect those around you! I learned that you can't get though this life without family and those relationships need to be tended to and cultivated.