This post is different, unrelated to fashion or beauty. I normally don’t share stuff about my personal life on social media…period…but it’s merely an inspirational post to encourage others to not to give up searching for anything they may be in search of.
About 16 years ago, I had this neighbor that I always played and hung out with. For privacy reasons, I won’t share her name. If you do the math, I was 10. We used to have so much fun together. We danced to Christina Aguilera’s first album, jumped on her water bed (even with her mom constantly yelling at us to stop), made mud pies together outside and even roamed the woods on our bikes together. She is what most would call a “childhood best friend.” She had a younger sister, who was too young to even remember any of this stuff (I’ll get more into that later). I remember it vaguely, but those are vague memories that will always stick with me.
Not even a year after they moved into the house next door, they were moving out (her, her younger sister, mother and stepfather) and back to their hometown in the Midwest. I was crushed. I had really lost my best friend. She gave me her new address and of course she had mine and we kept in contact through letters (no cell phones at this time really) and even exchanged pictures of each other for a few years. I still have all of these as memories…somewhere or another (I think), haha. So this eventually ended when she moved again (one of my letters was sent back to me) and we lost contact. I have no idea what happened at this point, why they moved, etc., so I honestly forgot about it after a while, being a kid and all and making new friends.
Being older, I always wonder about my old friends, how they’re doing and so forth. I’ve even made amends and apologized for any wrongdoings I may have done as a kid as a result of being older and learning that repentance and lack of grudges are just a couple of the only ways to everlasting life.
By the way, the separation between thoughts are not only a result of proper English, but they also represent how many breaks I’m taking as I type this. It’s really hard for me to share and type this without tears welling in my eyes, so bare with me as I continue to share.
Okay! So in reference to my statement made above regarding “wondering about old friends,” I had obviously forgotten about an important one, as I had the strangest dream a few years ago, at the age of 23 I believe. Now mind you, this was over a decade after I had seen or heard from this girl. Something in that dream told me to look for her. Now at that age, I was in my “lurking years,” meaning I had more than enough experience to find whatever I was looking for online…or so I thought. The only thing I could remember clearly were her full name and her sister’s. I easily remembered my friend’s because we shared the same middle name, another bond we had as kids. I started with my usual, Facebook, to do a name search. I took a number of things into account before doing this. 1, she may be married and have a different last name or 2, she may not even be on there. Since her name wasn’t too common, there were only a select few. I actually reached out to someone who may have been her via private message with small uncertainty. I say “may” because I had no idea how she would look over 10 years later. With the way old Facebook was set up, any messages that weren’t from actual friends were automatically sent to spam. I took this into account and after 3 years, no reply. I did another Facebook search just to see if anything changed, and no new names popped up. I decided to PM the possible girl again and to my surprise, she replied! She admitted my original message was sent to spam and apologized that she wasn’t who I was looking for. I didn’t give up at that point. That fueled my fire to keep looking. I figured if I had gotten this far, what’s there to lose?
This time, I was a bit smarter. I did an actual Google search of her full name. I came up with a few people that were possibilities, but I just couldn’t find a link to prove it was who I was in search of. Usually when you do a search for someone, relatives come up. Well none that were shown looked familiar to me, so I forgot about it for a few months and decided to try again.
In my final Google search, I decided to pair her name with her sister’s. After the first result popped up, my heart sank. It was an obituary for her mother. I had honestly forgotten her name, but when I saw that, my memory came back quickly. In the obituary, I saw her daughters’ names listed. It was literally an aha moment for me. Reading the obituary made me want to reach out to her even more as she had experienced such a huge loss and I wasn’t even there. I had no idea who her father was, as she was raised by a stepfather. My inference is that her and the stepfather separated since the mother’s last name was different in the obituary. In the obituary, I also noticed my friend’s sister’s last name was different. I instantly did a Facebook search with this new information and found not only her, but her sister too!
I private messaged her sister, with a major feeling that she probably didn’t remember anything being so young. My hypothesis was correct. She mentioned to me that they used to live in another town in Louisiana for a bit, which confirmed what I had already found on Google, so I knew I was on the right path. She also mentioned to me that her sister and she were “largely out of contact.” This made me wonder. What did she mean by this? Is she in jail? Do they just not have a strong relationship anymore? What happened? I obviously didn’t ask her this, as she didn’t even remember anything, so I did my own research. Before that, I messaged my friend. Up until this day, I still don’t have a response to my message, but upon research, I found something that may explain it all, something that really upset me.
As I mentioned, I did my own research. I got her location from Facebook, so I paired this with her full name in Google. The first result that popped up crushed me. I instantly knew it was her. It was an article with a long list of people who had warrants for their arrest due to drug possession. I saw her mugshot and I was instantly brought to tears. My mind raced. If I had been in her life, would this have happened? Did this happen as a result of losing her mom? Her sister? Everything else?
While I don’t have the answers to these questions, I can finally say I have closure. I tried reaching out to her to no avail, so I feel my part has been done. I found the answers I needed to finally close that chapter in my life. I honestly believe God hinted this to me in a dream, not to upset me about the outcome, but so I could share with everyone else who may not have closure. This could be due to a child you may have put up for adoption that you regret, a lost parent that you’d like to locate, or even like in my case, a lost friend. Regardless, this post is to motivate you to not give up on your search. Do what you believe in your heart. Ignore the road blocks. Persevere. Keep the faith. Hope my story didn’t bore you too much; it surely made me feel a lot better after typing it all (no more tears, promise!).
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Have a blessed Thursday!
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Photos: Kimberly Spins Photography
My best friend moved when I was in the 6th grade. I seen her again my freshman year at Southern University but haven’t seen her since. This made me thought of her, now I am going to search for her. I will be ready for whatever information I find. I pray your friend get the help she needs.
Thanks for sharing and thank you. I am praying for her as well. Good luck on your search!