Mikey

My last post reminded me of something else. My Uncle and I weren't the only ones in the kitchen that day. My cousin Mikey was also in there, someone who has been there for my my whole life. I've considered Mikey and his younger sister Gabrielle my siblings basically for as long as I can remember. When we were a lot younger I was at their house every day while my mom was at work, and we'd play all day. House, office, dance, video games, everything. One time Mikey had chicken pox and Gabrielle and I weren't allowed to go near him. Obviously we snuck up to play with him and sure enough the next week Gabrielle and I both had chicken pox at the same time.

The last day of my sophomore year of high school I went to the beach with both Mikey and Gabrielle. After that Mikey and I went to the Oasis concert. It was funny because I'd been listening to Oasis since I was 5 and sang that song to my uncle in his kitchen. ( I think I forgot to mention this in my last post but my uncle gave me his (What's the Story) Morning Glory cassette after I asked). So since the concert Mikey has been calling me his Wonderwall.

My junior year of high school Mikey joined the army. He scored ridiculously high on his army entrance exam and chose the job of an EOD tech, which stands for Explosives Ordinance Disarmament, an extremely dangerous job any way you look at it. After that I barely saw him unless he was home on leave, and even when he was I was either at school or working constantly. He spent 15 months in Afghanistan last year, and he finally came home last winter-ish. After that he was stationed in Georgia, so again, it was a long time between visits. He is deploying for Iraq for 12 months very soon but is coming home on leave for a couple weeks before he goes. Obviously this is hard on my family but we are very proud of Mikey and he loves what he does.

I'm definitely going to miss Mikey when he is in Iraq, and I pray for him everyday, as well as the rest of our troops.