The Day that Changed Everything

I've been wanting to write this story for awhile now. They say some things you never forget. Twenty years later, sometimes it still feels like yesterday. Deep down, the pain is still there, though I have learned to keep going. Although my head is full of the good memories, those days leading up to and after that day still linger. This is my story.

It was October 2003. I was a seventeen year old Junior in High School. It was an interesting time, in some ways I think of this time as some of my happiest, though it would prove to be the most difficult time in my life. I had so many huge milestones coming up, the future seemed bright. Prom, my eighteenth birthday, graduation, it was coming up quickly, and I was excited.

There were some challenges as well. My grandad had become very ill very fast. He went from being a strong-willed wise-cracking independent person to being bed bound in a nearby nursing home. My grandma was suddenly faced with huge hospital and nursing home bills. She put Mampau in charge of her rental property so she could focus more on my granddad. However people weren't renting in Greenwood that year, and those that were, didn't seem to want to pay. Suddenly we were faced at overdue mortgage payments on top of everything else. It had gotten to the point where I was afraid to make plans too far in the future, just in case we ended up having to move.

The beginning of the turning point started like any other day, Mampau dropped me off at school that morning. She told me of a necklace that she had seen in a store. She wanted it so badly, but she hadn't bought it. She'd go back, she said. We had had this discussion many times before. I would tease her about it, because usually she would go back to get something and it would be gone.

I was surprised that afternoon when someone from the church was at school at the end of the day to pick me up. Something had happened. There had been an accident, and Mampau was in the hospital. Apparently she had stopped at a yellow light, and a Wal-Mart truck rammed into the back of her. With several injuries and a totaled car, there was a pay out from Wal-Mart. It wasn't super huge, but it was enough that we were able to breath a little bit. Even better, someone had rented a home on the property, a man from Florida. I remember how excited I was that we could pay our bills now. While things seemed bright, there was a new feeling that overcome me, I didn't know what it meant.

I don't know when it started, but the feeling was strong. I started feeling extremely sad, I thought about death all the time. As a member of a church were the preacher often talked about the end of times, I thought these preachings were getting to me. I would talk to Mamapu about it, saying that I felt that life as we knew it was about to be over. I assumed something was going to happen to me. At one point Mampau laughed it off. She said my life had just begun, if anyone's was almost over, it was her's. Those words still haunt me at how accurate they would prove to be.

After a while, we could tell there was some tension between Mampau and the new renter. It had blown up over a new lawn mower of all things. Mampau had bought one, and the renter had wanted to use it, but she had refused to allow him to. Also, little did I know, but she had been talking about the pay out that she had gotten from the car accident.

Even at this age, I felt it was my job to protect her. She had bipolar disease and could easily snap on anyone who was around. I would tell her to watch what she said, but she didn't seem worried. I also told her to lock the door when she left home. She never saw any sense in it, as she was constantly going back and forth. I didn't anything like what happened would happened, I just knew I was going through a depression unlike anything I had ever felt before or since.

That weekend we seemed to argue a lot. That Friday night I had to play in the band at a football game. There was also a concert that we had both wanted to go to that night. I told her to go on to the concert because she had some friends that were also going. She was angry because she thought that I didn't want her at the game. That was never the case, but she didn't see it that way. During band class, I asked my teacher if I could use his phone, (I didn't have my own cell phone yet.) I invited her to the game and told her that I loved her. There was no way I could know that this would be the last game she would get to see me play in.

The next day she took me to guitar lessons and then to the church we cleaned every Saturday. I made the mistake of asking her about my bank account. I just wanted to know how much money I had saved up, but she thought this was a sign I was going to leave her. She believed I would go off to college and forget about her, even though she was my mom. Less then a day later, it would be her that would leave me.

As tense as she was those last couple of days, I can't help but wonder if she had a feeling something wasn't right. Thankfully by that evening, everything was back to normal. We drank french vanilla cappuccino and talked about music. For some reason, I decided to go outside that night to get my guitar and music out of Mampau's car. This was unusual, because I would usually leave it in until the next day. Because it was dark, she wanted to walk with me. As a joke I grabbed my plastic baseball bat and handed it to her for protection, which she proceeded to hit me with playfully. Later, she showed me my bank statement. Eventually she hugged me goodnight and said she'd see me the next day.

She had bought me some chicken noodle soup. I would wait for her to leave to eat it because I would take all of the chicken out and didn't want to hurt her feelings because of it. I ate soup that night and went on to study for nine weeks' tests that was coming up the next week. Typically, I would look out the window to watch her go inside, I didn't that night. What would it have changed if I had? I don't know.

The next morning I was woken by my grandma asking me if Mampau had said anything about going anywhere. She hadn't, but it wasn't unheard of her going to the grocery store down the street before church. She would be back any minute, as I had to get to Sunday School because I taught the little kids. I grabbed my keys off the table and headed across the driveway to the house that Mampau stayed in. As I got just a few steps away from the door, I stopped in my tracks. I didn't have a feeling of dread, I just figured that if she was gonna leave a note, she would have brought it to our house. I walked back down the steps and down the road towards the mailbox.

My grandma told me to get in the car so that she could take me on to church, I had responsibilities, and I needed to see them through. As soon as I got to church I told the first person I saw, one of my youth directors, that I couldn't find Mampau. Shocked, she told our preacher, Brother Bob. He grabbed a deacon and headed to our house. I don't think anybody was overly worried, there had to be a reasonable explanation.

Ironically, none of my students showed up that morning for class, so I ended up going to the youth class. One of the older ladies that I was close with came in and told me that they had found her. She said something about Mampau getting hit in the head and having her car taken. But she was home. Brother Bob would be in soon to tell me more. In the moment, I sighed, it was going to be a long day. I imagined her sitting at home furious because our new car that we had only had a couple of months was gone. I would have a hard time calming her down, but I would do my best.

Suddenly, Brother Bob came in and stood right above me, looking down with a look on his face that showed helplessness. As the words came out of his mouth, everyone else in the room blurred out. He was the only one I could see now, "your Pawpaw's gone." At that moment, my mind with to my grandpa in the nursing home. Did he take a sudden turn for the worst? But then like a bolt of lightning, it hit me like a punch to my soul. Brother Bob never said her nickname right, he was talking about Mampau. I screamed "Oh God no!" I buried my head into his shoulder and broke down, crying harder then I had ever cried before.

After what seemed like an eternity, he helped me up and with his arm arm around me walked me out. Everyone poured out of the church, crowding around me to hug me and tell me they were sorry. I could hear someone ask what they should do about service, and it was decided to end Sunday School. Brother Bob walked me to his car. Ms. Sherry, my teacher that I had initially told that I couldn't find Mampau, and Ms. Shirley, the lady that told me she had been hit in the head got in with us so that they could offer me some support.

As I walked through the door, my grandma sat at her spot at the kitchen table with tears in her eyes. "Its just us now," she said. I didn't know how to function for awhile. Nobody understood why I went to school the next day, but what else could I do? If I had stayed home, what would I do? Normally when I stayed home from school, I would watch tv and do puzzles. But in this moment, that didn't seem appropriate. I also couldn't dwell.

In school, everyone rallied around me. Everyone was silent as I sat with my head on my desk all day crying. Even the students who would generally try to make my life miserable came up to me and told me that they were sorry. When I got home, I had to talk to detectives and reporters. It didn't take long to find out who killed her. Ned, the man who had rented the house next door to her's had a criminal record. He had killed a man in Florida. At that time, my grandma had never thought to do a background check when someone rented.

There were so many surreal moments in those first few days. One moment that will always stick with me was when the detetive was at our house taking my statement. He had noticed as he walked past my grandma's car my guitar and and music folder with a huge picture of the Beatles on it. When we were finished, he asked me if I played. I said that I was taking lessons, and that the Beatles were why I wanted to play. He asked me to play. I tried to strum a few chords. He then asked if he could see it. He began to play a medley of Beatles' songs, including Mother Nature's Son. I sat in silence, with tears streaming down from my face, but with a slight peace, the first time in days.

It was difficult having to talk to reporters for the newspaper and tv. Less then a year before, I was being interviewed by the same reporters. That time when Mampau had nominated me as a local hero, our pictures in the paper with huge smiles on our faces and my arm around her. Now I was being asked how I felt that she was gone. "I lost my best friend," was the best I could get out. I remember one afternoon taking a walk, trying to clear my head a little. I glanced up to see a reporter with a camera aiming straight at me. I don't know if they were taking a picture of me or the land behind me, but it felt so weird.

My emotions were everywhere at this time. Unfortunately, some looked to take advantage of this. I was lucky in the fact that the house was cleaned before I ever went in that day. I didn't see any direct evidence of a crime having taken place there. Of course, after the investigation was over, I had to go in to clean out all of our stuff.

My aunt and her husband would come down on the weekends to "help." I was scared and heart broken. In my moment of weakness, Micky, my aunt's husband saw an opportunity. He was quick to point out finger print marks left on the door, "I bet that was his," he's say. Once, when we found something personal of mine laying around, he told me that it was supposed to have been me going in by myself that night. He was waiting for me, but unfortunately Mampau went instead. He told me that he had something that would help me relax. He tried to take advantage of me. Thankfully, even at my lowest point, I was able to say no. The worst part about it was that my aunt, who should have protected me, encouraged it. My aunt who I had once thought was so cool when I was little, I wanted to be just like her. I now look back and am glad that I grew up to be nothing like her. I never told my grandma, partly because I figured she had enough on her plate, and also because I don't think she would have believed me if I had.

Despite everything, there were also those who carried me during this time. My friend Geoffrey was like an older brother to me. Whenever I saw him, we greeted each other the same way. I would run to him and he would pick me up as he hugged me. The day of Mampau's funeral, I saw him standing among the crowd as I was getting into my cousin's car to go to the cemetery. When my cousin realized that he was a friend of mine, she asked him if he wanted to go with us. He hopped in without missing a step, held onto me as he walked me over to where the burial was, then quietly stepped away.

One night a few years later, my bedroom light suddenly cut on by itself. I smiled as I said that I thought someone was trying to say hi. Soon after, I was shocked to get a message from his sister, who was another dear friend of mine. Geoffrey had passed away in a car accident. I believe that the light cutting on was Geoffrey's way of telling me that he was still protecting me, just like he always had.

A defining moment happened one day during after school band class. I was sitting in my seat feeling completely broken. Why was I still here when Mampau wasn't? As I fought hard to keep the tears from falling, a young boy who was a drummer walked up to me. He was in the sixth or seventh grade, I didn't even know his name. He handed me a note and quickly walked up to his place behind his drum. I opened it to find a drawing of a sun and flowers. All it said was "Keep living your precious life." I walked up to him, unable to even get any words out, I just hugged him, as I couldn't keep the tears inside any longer. He didn't realize how badly I needed those words, they meant everything. I had to keep going, and live the best life that I could.

About six years ago, I got a call from the district attorney. Ned was trying to get out of prison due to a medical issue. After all these years of trying to heal, I was suddenly forced to have to relive it all. As I sat in that office, giving my statement, I was able to learn information that I hadn't known originally. The way she died was so much more horrific then I knew. He didn't give Mampau and his other victim a chance to live their lives, he shouldn't be out. This moment was the closest that I will ever get to closure. It was my small way of protecting her, even though I wasn't able to that night.

Whenever Mampau's bipolar was getting the best of her, I would always tell her that people as a whole were generally good. Life was good. It will always hurt that despite those words, her life was taken in just about the worst way imaginable. Although she's not here anymore, I will always carry her with me in my heart. As the promise I made her, I will never leave her, and hopefully now she is able to know it.

I think it's important to talk a little about who Mampau was. Her name was Connie Colleen. She always fibbed about her height, determined to push it to 5ft. She loved Elvis and Dwight Yoakam. She was creative and fun. She suffered more in life then she ever should have. Despite our ups and downs, she did her best. My biggest memories of her was when she dropped a freshly baked cake into a sink full of dirty dish water, then calling me in to teach a lesson on how making mistakes happen. Also the time in the car when she was angry when she thought I had lost an important letter(which I hadn't) At one point as she was fussing at me, I sneezed. The words that would follow from her would forever become infamous as she said "Stop sneezing or I'll give you something to sneeze about."

This is for you Mampau, you will always be my best friend