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Sean and Daniel in 2005 at WHS graduation

Yesterday I received a "Save the Date" wedding magnet announcing the fall wedding of a very special young man.  This got me to thinking about the story I am going to tell here.

Because I had moved around so much growing up and had changed schools so many times, I was determined that things were going to be different for my son.  I wanted him to go from kindergarten through graduation in the same town with the same group of friends and with the comfort and familiarity that I never got to experience.  Sadly, or so I thought at the time, it was just not meant to be.  It's not near as bad as it could have been, as we did only move one time, but when we moved, Daniel was 10 and had really developed a close group of friends that he went to both school and church with.  He had to leave them behind and he was crushed. 

On that fateful moving day, May 3, 1997 to be exact, we loaded up the last truck and car full of our belongings and headed to our new home in Wylie.  It was a Saturday and that afternoon, 350 miles from everything that he knew and loved, Daniel stood at the top of the driveway near the back yard of our new home looking down across some open fields to a house where we could all see and hear kids splashing around, playing in the pool, having water balloon fights and generally enjoying many of the things he would have been doing had we still been in Odessa that day.  I was so sad for him I didn't even ask him to help us unload. 

As I carried our belongings back and forth to the house I noticed a boy come up the hill towards where Daniel was standing.  The field behind us consisted of empty lots on an incline and had yet to be bought or built on, so it was a clear path to the "party house" that Daniel had been watching.  I walked out to where the boy had by now approached Daniel and I could see they were about the same size and age.  The boy was Sean and his mother had sent him up to invite Daniel to the party!  I later found out that she had seen Daniel standing there and knew that we were just moving in and she wanted Daniel to meet his new neighbors.  Sean introduced himself and said that he wanted Daniel to come to the party, which turned out to be Sean's 10th birthday party. Daniel was worried that he didn't have a present, but Sean said that was ok.  He was so cute.  He even said not to worry about swim trunks, that Daniel could borrow some of his and a towel too, and that they were having cake and ice cream and they were going to eat later and Daniel could stay for everything if that was ok?

You know how sometimes you just know that everything is going to work out and not to ask too many questions?  Well the "over-protective mom" in me just felt that this was one of those times.  Some people would probably say I did everything wrong when I let Daniel go with Sean, I didn't know Sean, I didn't know his mom, I didn't know anything about any of the people at the party.  But I let him go, without a second thought....after all I could SEE the house and the pool and all the kids and I could even hear them.  But that wasn't even really the deciding factor, I just somehow knew this was ok, and the look on my son's face was priceless.  They could not run down that hill fast enough.

Later, after a full afternoon of moving into our house,  I went down to the to collect my exhausted son.  The party was long over, but I could tell it had been a good one.  I met Sean's mother Pam, his dad Andy and his brother and sister Blake and Amanda.  As we talked and visited that evening, I knew I had done the right thing.  My intuition was right as this family turned out to be some of the finest folks I have ever met. 

Daniel and Sean have remained friends ever since that first day we moved to Wylie.  Oh yeah, the wedding magnet I mentioned at the beginning of this story----it's the announcement of Sean's September wedding to which we are invited and at which Daniel will be serving as a groomsman.  I think that move we made nearly 15 years ago was really meant to be.