Parenting Guru: A love letter to my childhood crush, gone much too soon

Mommyfriend

Dear Surfer Boy,

I met you in the 2nd grade; your surfer boy good looks blew my 7 year old mind. Your mom was a single parent and worked as a waitress. I could tell the two of you had a special bond. You liked surfing and skating, making you automatically cooler than the rest of us obsessed with Smurfs. You didn't talk much and had very few friends. You were different.

I knew you and your mom struggled. You didn't have nice clothes or cool stuff the like rest of us. You had a really mean dad who used to do bad things. I never really understood what that meant but it was obvious you had seen a lot in your short life.

We were in the same class for 4 years. You never knew I like-liked you, at least I didn't think you did. Somewhere around 5th grade I used to daydream about being your girlfriend and marrying you someday. We would have blonde children and tell everyone we met in 2nd grade. It was going to be a love story for the ages.

When I changed schools in 7th grade, I knew I'd miss you. I was too shy to keep in touch.

I thought about you a few times through junior high and high school. I would wonder how you and your mom were doing as the fragmented pieces of your childhood began to make sense to me. When I was 19 I ran into an elementary friend of ours, I asked if he knew how you were doing.

He lowered his eyes and told me that you had passed away. I didn't ask how you died, I didn't want to know. It was clear to me that your death was unexpected and horrifically tragic.

My heart was broken.

You were the sandy-haired boy who always picked me to be on your team so I wouldn't be chosen last. You were the boy who was complicated and intriguing. You were the boy who only lit up around his mother. You were the boy I wanted to marry when I was 10 years old, and you were gone. Taken.

To this day I think about your mother from time to time. I think about her devastating loss and wonder how she is able to navigate though life without your bright light.

I don't know if you ever found love in your young life but when I was a schoolgirl, you were the love of mine.

Mommyfriend goes by Lori Garcia in real life and is a Shine Parenting Guru. She writes at www.mommyfriend.com where she's busy finding perfection in imperfection daily. When she's not folding laundry she's a Featured Parenting Contributor for Associated Content for Yahoo!