Take a minute to value friends

This time of year can be one of the toughest to write a column.
During the holiday season we always feel obligated to produce something poignant, something that captures the spirit of the Thanksgiving holiday.
But the words aren't always there.
I know I didn't have any idea what I was going to write until a week ago.
I was working on one of my other stories for our monster Thanksgiving issue, and I looked back at a column I wrote seven years ago to find some background information. That piece was about the retirement of former Jay County High School athletics secretary Jeannie Habegger.
I thought about Jeannie, and how she was with us just a few more years after her retirement. (Thankfully she got to see the Patriot boys basketball team make the state finals in 2006. It would have been a travesty for her to have missed that.)
And the memory of Jeannie got me thinking about some of the tragedies, and near tragedies, that occurred in Jay County this year.
I thought of Dave Miller, the former owner of Miller Aviation, who was killed March 30 when a plane he was piloting crashed in Kentucky. His death in the crash reminded many in Jay County of Greg and Marianne Moser and Jeff and Eileen Bickel, who were killed in a crash eight years earlier. For me, it brought to mind a former neighbor, who was killed in a similar crash when I was growing up.
It was not too many weeks after Dave’s death that upon arriving back in Portland after a trip to the Cleveland area to visit family I saw messages on Facebook urging friends to pray for Lyndee Evans. I immediately went to work trying to find out what had happened to Lyndee, hoping that her situation wasn't as serious as the Facebook post made it seem.
But it was. Lyndee had to be flown by Samaritan helicopter to Parkview Hospital in Fort Wayne for treatment of a collapsed lung, broken jaw and skull fracture among other injuries.
Just two weeks after that, another Facebook post brought my attention to the need to pray for the family of Matt Aker. Within a few hours, a friend confirmed that the Portland Fire Chief died from injuries suffered in a motorcycle accident.
I can't say that I knew Matt or Dave that well although I saw them often at sporting events — Matt serving as a reserve for the Jay County Sheriff’s Department and Dave watching his kids Sam, Aly and Eme in their various activities. But they both struck me as good people who were very much tied to this community.
The outpourings of support after their deaths confirmed as much.
They are, and will continue to be, greatly missed.
Being the strong-willed girl her family and friends universally agree she is, Lyndee fought back from the injuries she suffered in her car crash in early April.
We're lucky to still have her with us, cheering at football and basketball games, managing the girls swim team and getting ready to go off to college next year. She's one of the nicest girls I've had the pleasure of meeting, and it was a privilege for me to be able to write the story of her effort to attend the JCHS prom just five days after her accident.
And that brings me back to Jeannie.
I was only lucky enough to know Jeannie for about six years, but I still think of her every time I go without a coat to a football game on a chilly evening. That practice used to drive her crazy.
I'm fairly certain it drives her daughters crazy as well, but they aren't quite as vocal about it. (And no, Joni, Sheri and Kristi, that is not a challenge.)
Although Jeannie wasn’t taken from us in an accident like Dave and Matt were, her passing was still far from expected.
I know the impact didn't strike me completely until a week or so later. I was at a JCHS football game — I can't remember if I went with a coat or not — and at halftime I thought to myself, "I'll go over and say hello to Jeannie."
I was about halfway to where she had generally watched from her parked vehicle just outside the track those last couple of years before the realization hit me — Jeannie wasn't there anymore.
I'm fighting back the tears, quite unsuccessfully, as I think about that moment.
Even when we realize how important people like Jeannie are to us, it is often not until we lose them that we truly understand how much they meant.
So I urge you always, but especially during Thanksgiving, to take a minute and tell the Lyndees, Daves, Matts and Jeannies in your life just how special they are. And don't be afraid to shed a tear while you do.[[In-content Ad]]