Shorts With Poetry by McKenzie Dexter Michaels - HTML preview

The Smartest Person I ever Knew & Special

Some would think the special person Im talking about could possibly be my fifteen year old sister who died when I was nineteen my best friend in the whole world at the time the one who taught me of true heartbreak, my first bitter taste of death. Though the breakup of my first true love was devastating to me,it didnt compare to losing someone who you lived with for nearly sixteen years. My sister has been dead for thirty-one years now and my children never had the pleasure of meeting their aunt, my very best friend in that particular time of my life. This will be remedied one glorious day in heaven until then the rest of my family will have to wait, except for my oldest child, my only daughter, which leads me to the next part of this story.

Im sure you would think she was the smartest and special, which she was smart, special, and one of the most precious things in my life. Another most precious things in my life is her younger brother, my only living child out of the four I have fathered. My girl was the only one to know life outside of her mothers womb. The other son I was to be father of was still born and my other child was aborted, murdered, by its mother and I have no idea of what sex it would have been. Again, you would think this smart and special person I am telling you of surely would be my eighteen-year-old daughter who now is in heaven helping her aunt with baby-sitting my unborn children until I get there but you would be wrong in this assumption also. The death of my little daughter once again robbed me of my best friend, as untrue as this sounds after being divorced from her mother for eleven years she was the female voice in my life. The one who told me I was being stupid or the lady was lying to me or what I should do to please the woman I was seeing. I can still here her saying to me, “Daddy you are being silly!”

My little sisters death taught me of grief, the lesson that brought the truth of eternity into focus for me and truly broke my heart, but the death of my little girl ripped the very fabric of my soul. If I live to be a million years old, I will daily miss her because her death killed a part of me, which will never heal because there is no greater pain than out living your children. Though my soul has been slowly mending over the past six years, it will never completely healed until the wonderful day I meet her in heaven with my other children in her arms! What could a father want more than that!!

Neither one of these is the one Im talking about in this story, I am talking about my sweet thirty-five-year-old girl cousin who was nine months younger than me. Some called her retarded when we were growing up, me and my dead sister would resolve this with violence, but not her. She would at first become angry and tell them she hated them and then a few minutes later, already having forgotten the incident, she would grab then in a bear like hug giving them kisses, telling them that she loved them.

She wasn t born with her mental difficulties, they occurred when the doctor who delivered her applied to much force with the forceps bruising her brain. You could tell by looking at her she was a special person and her IQ at times was that of a nine year old. My late grandfather on my mothers side stated it best when he said she was the smartest one in her house and since her parents (my aunt and uncle) and her younger sister was addicted to alcohol and drugs, my grandpa was right.

These, true life stories Im going to reveal will show the world how smart and special she really was. Every year at Thanksgiving my mothers side of the family always had our immediate family reunion and we helped in the celebration of my grandparents wedding anniversary. This was also the occasion when we exchanged our Christmas gifts with that side of the family because we lived in another state and couldnt make it back. From our grandparents us kids always got a crisp five dollar bill in a bank money envelope, which continued into my late twenties with a child of my own, oh yes my baby girl received the same thing as her father!

Back to the story at hand, chased after another rabbit, my sweet and precious cousin was allowed to say grace for our bountiful and delicious feast sometimes. Here is an example of her sincere, innocent, and brilliant prayers! One time she stopped mid prayer and…. “Lord bless this food… excuse me for a moment Lord”…. “DADDY CLOSE YOUR EYES”…. I am back Lord. Or,on another occasion when she sincerely asked, “And Lord help ma maw run that sorry preacher off from the church!”

You had to be careful of what you requested in her presence because she took it to the Lord and she knew for a fact Jesus was her best friend! I truly feel the Lord has answered some of the prayers I have prayed in my lifetime but I know he listened to this special creation of His every time she came into his Holy Presence. Though she was mentally challenged, she had a job at the local Catholic school in the laundry but she also helped with the grammar school children. This was the only time she was around church except when our grandparents took her with them. Her mother had taken her and her sister to church for a little while and was even teaching a Sunday school class but had a run in with someone and she quit going. Of course the church was full of members (notice I didnt say Godly members), so nobody ever called and asked her what was wrong! Another one bites the dust from so called church members! During an interview once Gandhi was askedwhy he wasnt a follower of Jesus being such a man of peace, he replied and told them he had once contemplated being a Christian until he met a few. Oops down another rabbit hole, now where was I?

Every Thanksgiving I could remember we left home from Wednesday night, the day before Thanksgiving, until Sunday afternoon and we always stayed atmy cousins house because my aunt was my mothers only sister. We did this because it was a four to five hour drive one way but after her death we drove both ways but after the death of my cousin Thanksgiving was never the same, she wasnt there to love on you and the bright light she brought to our family had been extinguished. After the utter darkness of her death, we spent only a few hoursat my grandparents house and to tell the truth we never again spent the night there, it just wasnt the same!

I used to tell people about my sweet cousin, how she is in heaven now and not broken no more but now I see things differently. I realize the world certainly could use more people like her in it! My papaw was one of the kindest, patient, and wisest people I have ever known and I have even patterned my life after him but I am afraid he was completely wrong about my cousin. She not only was the smartest person in her household she was …………….. The Smartest Person I Ever Knew & SPECIAL