March 1st

This weekend I journeyed to Charlotte to celebrate my little cousin’s birthday. On the way there my mind was filled with memories…of course! I remembered this one Fall Break Landen and I went to Manhattan, KS to visit our cousins Lyndsi and Grant. It was his Freshman and my Junior year. We had such great conversation during our traveling time. We stopped in Topeka and shopped a bit. I remember he bought a pair of dress shoes. I can’t remember why? I bought Strawberry Shortcake pajama bottoms. I am so thankful for these times to look back on and feel that warm ooey gooey brownie feeling inside.
Today is Landen’s day of birth. I remember the day he was born…I believe I shared that story in the first post…
Happy Birthday, Landen.
You know out of the millions of celebrations given to me over the years I can only remember a handful of celebrations for my brother. I actually pulled off a surprise party for him when we were in college but very few memories of Landen celebrations.
March was always an interesting time to have a birthday. He never cared if we made a big deal out of his birthday or not. A lot of times my parents resorted to the Chuckie Cheese Birthday parties with a couple of friends. A few years it snowed on his birthday so we had sledding parties and they were fun.
There is one birthday in particular that I remember. I was in 5th Grade and had become a finalist in a spelling bee with an invitational to State. I was so excited and so proud until I discovered the Spelling Bee was on March 1st. I decided not to tell my parents, yet somehow they found out that I had been hiding my accomplishment. They asked me why I hadn’t told them. I told them that I didn’t want my brother to have to spend his birthday at a stupid spelling bee. Landen found out and was insistent that I attend. March 1st came around. We went and I did not win. Landen put his little 2nd Grade arm around my shoulders and told me that he thought he had the smartest sister out of all the others. (I have a picture somewhere...I'll have to locate it.) We then went out to celebrate Landen’s birthday.
This was Landen…selfless and absolutely incredible!He would be 25 today.
It seems absolutely impossible that he is not here but he is not.
I loved him.