I took a road trip last weekend, a planned one. While most of my treks are pretty spontaneous, this was planned and important. Some of the best things in life are not planned.
“Don”t make any plans for July 3,” the facebook message from Jamie stated.
I had to know what was going on. I am impatient that way. She said not to tell anyone because she hadn”t told anyone yet, but she was getting married.
Let me begin with the history of Jamie.
When I first learned of her it was one of those moments that tattooed itself into my mind.
I, 17, was in Albertsons and my friend Joanie, 16, was bagging my groceries. She leaned toward me and whispered, “I have to tell you something when I get off of work.”
I had to know what it was. Because of my teenage narcissism I thought it had something to do with me, so I pestered her until she blurted out, “I”m pregnant, I”m so scared and no one knows.” She was really pregnant too, and hiding it well. I said the only thing left to say, “Congratulations.”
The next day I purchased my first tiny piece of clothing ever, a 0 to 3-month-sized Harley Davidson T-shirt. When I brought it to Joanie she laughed and then cried.
Joanie attended an all-girls Catholic school and had a large traditional family. The baby”s father was like vapor as soon as he heard the news. Your loss, Aaron.
Jamie Gail was born soon after, Gail after her grandmother. She was sweet and stubborn. I could relate to her. When she laughed, she laughed so hard she screamed, shook and her round face turned beet-red. It was hard to tell if she was laughing or crying. Sometimes when she was crying, she”d burst into laughter. I used to sing her Van Halen”s “Jamie”s Crying,” all the time.
Jamie represented our circle of friends” induction to adulthood. She belonged to all of us, I think.
Joanie and I have kept in touch, though most of our adult lives we”ve been geographically separated.
Jamie, now 25, glided down the aisle of the Old Church in Portland, Ore. I sat with the old gang from school like no time had passed. We all wept tears of happiness. She smiled at me and a movie-like-montage played inside my head of the stages of her life. I closed my eyes and saw a 3-year-old Jamie cramming the wrong plastic pieces into the wrong spaces of the Fisher-Price canister toy, yelling at the objects and hitting them with the red plastic hammer, followed by 7-year-old Jamie running to me at the U-Catch Trout Pond, “Look at my fish Mandy, it”s huge!” she yelled. I agreed it was and reminded her she wasn”t supposed to fish in that pond. It was the expensive pond and the fish was $30, totally worth it. I saw the look on her face and her scrunched up button nose when we cleaned the fish. There were birthday parties at Chuck E. Cheese and photos of us all crammed in a little booth.
I worried when I went to visit her as a teen in Washington that she really wouldn”t remember me. When I walked through the door, she tackled me and we wrestled until I couldn”t catch my breath.
If all teen pregnancies ended up with a gem like Jamie, I would advocate for it. She is a bright, God-loving, responsible, giving adult.
Mistakes don”t happen. I witnessed it last Saturday. There is no way in the world she wasn”t meant to be.
“I”m standing here with my arms a mile-wide, hoping and praying for you.
Listen to me and enlighten me ? Give me all of your sunshine. A spark is all I need
to take away, all of the shadows, well what more can I say.” ? Journey
Mandy Feder is the Record-Bee news editor. She can be reached at mandyfeder@yahoo.com or 263-5636 Ext. 32.
