Tribute to Adrian

Today's post is going to be a tribute to a childhood friend, Adrian who was murdered twelve years along with her mom and brother.
Today would've been Adrian's 25th Birthday.

Our families were very close since my dad was her uncle Marvin's best friend. They were a large group known as the "Vichy Bunch". I'm not going to reflect the tragic moments, it is still too hard to overcome and bare. Instead I would like to embrace her life on the good and happy times.

One of my favorite memories was a time my family went to a camp site to visit where the "Vichy Bunch" was staying. This was the summer of 1997. It was the perfect day to go swimming, but I had forgot to bring my swim suit along. I watch and waded in the water while all the other kids swam. Adrian had suggested I just jump in with my clothes on and play marco polo with them since it was so hot out and my clothes would dry in no time. This was a game we had mastered and could easily go on forever not being it if her brother Kyle was marco. We ended the evening shooting off fireworks, making sand castles and playing hide-n-seek with a foam dice. We added in a few rules that who ever found it first had to make it back to a certain spot and would be the winner. Which meant others tackling you for it so they could win. Doesn't sound like too much fun now, but we had a blast and laughed until our stomach's hurt with sand covering our entire body.

A funny story I had with Adrian is when we were little we had a sleep over at my house. I don't remember what all we did since we were very little at that time, but I do remember the next morning. Mom came to wake us up for chocolate chip pancakes and Adrian was no where to be found. Come to find out she rolled off the bed and was sound asleep under my bed. The picture above is of Adrian and I coloring the night before.

My last memory of Adrian was in December of 1997 at her Aunt Susan's house. Her cousin Kelsey and I always loved to play house with our baby dolls, Adrian was more of a tom boy and loved being outside and doing more boy related things. We(Kelsey and I) played most of the day in a small room under the stairs fit perfectly for our "play house" while Adrian played outside with her brother Kyle and cousin Carrie. She kept coming downstairs to try and get us to do things outside with her. I to this day regret not spending more time with her by going outside whether I wanted to or not, and not knowing it would be the last time. Kelsey had bought the three of us friendship rings and gave them to us that day. I still have mine and keep it on a necklace around my mirror in my car. I think of it as a good luck charm and a piece of Adrian I can see each day and remember the good times.

Adrian was a very smart girl and would have succeeded in life in so many ways. It's sad her dream life never had the chance to play out the way it should.
Not a day goes by that we don't think about you,
Not a year goes by that we don't miss you,
Happy Birthday Adrian! R.I.P.
March 12, 1985 - February 5, 1998

Hopefully by Monday I will have a picture and copy of one of her poems. We have several poems she had wrote in school and one was read at their funeral that fit to a "T". Almost like that poem was meant to be read at that time and day.