This fundraising event and journey, has become a huge part of my life, and just makes me smile when I'm alone thinking of Bubba, just knowing that I can do this for him. Yeah, my contributions now, won't help bring him back, but it will help me honor his memory in a way that I know he would be proud of me in. There are so many things in life that we look back on and say I wish I would have done things differently, and at 18 years old watching the one person in my life who had been there for everything, lose his life to a battle that he had no choice in, was the toughest turning point.
I regret not going and hanging out with him every opportunity I was given, instead being that teenager and doing my own thing. Now as an adult, I look back and say "Man if I had just done this with him, and gone there with him!" These types of things run through my head on a daily basis, even almost 9 years after losing him. I do believe that someone like Bubba is never forgotten, because he is thought about and missed by my family and close friends on a daily basis. He was...No doubt about it...the Best person I have ever meet!
I was talking to a JE team member the other day, and was telling her, that I feel as though this is the one thing that I can do to feel like I'm giving back to the time I lost with my brother, and in a way be active in a dream of his...to find a cure for CF!
Most of you don't know this, or have forgotten possibly, but Bubba was on the double lung transplant list...and man, I will tell you, when we went over to Dallas and heard that his name was officially added to the list...I had flashes into the future of him being here for all steps of my life. College, Marriage, Children, just growing up together, and he, Mandy, and I still having the opportunity to make the bond between us and Mom even stronger. In life, as I remember it, growing up, it was always us 4, and I cherish our memories, and longed that we would have that longer. I guess you can say, "I had false hope!" At that time though, it was the one thing that we had to grasp on to, and think that it did help us on the road to reality in the end!
So for all of you skeptics out there...who think I'm crazy and that there is no way that I will meet my goal...check back in June...and let me know what you think!
*Mom giggling at her crazy children in the background...and Mandy and I posing with Bubba after our glamour Shots in 1994 or 95'...time flies when you have hair that cool...oh, and I was sporting one of Bubba's old shirts, Mandy and I both were guilty of rolling sleeves and tying up shirts just so we could sport Bubba's clothes. Even though we were girls and 8 years younger...we always wanted to be just as cool as he was, even now!
