Tyler

Tyler.... The best friend that I have ever had. I never imagined that one of the friendships I cherished the most would start on a football field. Tyler was popular and of course I knew who he was, but he had no idea who I was. I met Tyler my junior year of high school. My friend, Tanya, told me I needed to play powder puff football with her. It wasn't for me...Not my kind of thing I told her. She was persistent though and I ended up playing. That is where mine and Tyler's story began. I was told I was going to be a linebacker and Tyler was going t o be my coach. “Great,” I thought, “I get to spend every day with this guy for a week and a half.” And with that I started to reconsider playing. Tyler was far nicer than I had ever expected him to be though. The day that I really started to consider him a friend was a long day. We had just played a full scrimmage in preparation for our game and one of the other coaches was making us run gassers. For those who don’t know one gasser is sprinting to the 50 yard line and back twice. We were on our third gasser when I slipped and twisted my ankle. The coach making us run started yelling mean and hurtful things at me that I won’t even repeat. He was also yelling that if I didn’t get up everyone was going to keep running. So, I go up and started hobbling back down the field. I made it about 5 yards when I went down again. This time I heard Tyler yelling that everyone was done. Tyler came down to where I was and asked me if I was okay. About that time my pride kicked in and I told him I was okay. He told me that I wasn’t allowed to walk; one of the other coaches would give me a ride home. I fought him on it and then he said, “If you don’t let someone take you home I will carry you all the way home.” Needless to say he got his way.From then on, I knew that I had a new friend. Tyler and I were in the same math class and because both of our last names started with O we sat near each other. In those classes Ty and I became better friends. One day I was walking through the halls on my way to class and I walked past Ty and his friends. I said hi to him and walked around the corner. One of his friends said something to the effect of why are you friends with her. She is a nobody. I stopped right around the corner because I heard that comment. I stood and waited for a reply from Tyler, unseen by all. Tyler asked him if he had ever had a conversation with me and the kid said, “Why would I want to?” Tyler then told him that until he had a conversation with me and got to know me he didn’t want to hear anyone bad mouthing me. I went inside of my class grateful for someone who cared. Mine and Tyler’s friendship progressed quickly after that. It got to the point where Tyler and I could communicate without words. He wore Addias Moves cologne and kept a bottle of it in his locker. I loved it and I would walk by his locker and he would hand it to me and I would spray it and give it back and keep walking. No words ever being said. It became a daily ritual.Our senior year both Ty and I were struggling with our school work. We were both working on make-up packets that we needed to do to graduate. Tyler and I worked together helping each other out. I finished mine and a week and a half before graduation I found out that I was going to graduate. Tyler hadn’t finished his packets yet and he told me that he wasn’t going to be able to walk with our class and that he was going to give up. I told him that we had worked to hard for him to give up and if he didn’t walk I wouldn’t either. It is a good thing he didn’t call my bluff because I don’t know if I would have been able to follow through. He finished everything and we both were able to walk with our class. After graduation I went to Snow College and Ty stayed here and worked. One particularly hard day I came home and there was a note from my roomie telling me to call home. I called home and my mom told me that there had been an accident and that one of my friends had died. Immediately four people went through my mind; Eric, MaryAnn, Kip, and Tyler. She then said it was someone I knew and she didn’t which eliminated Eric and MaryAnn. She then told me that it was Tyler. I was crushed. I hung up with her and tried to put on a happy face because I was supposed to be at a party for my friend Chris, who had just been elected student body president. I walked in and apparently my happy face wasn’t as happy as I had hoped because one of the guys there said jokingly, “If you aren’t going to smile you have to leave.” I walked out and sat on the porch followed by my friend Kelly. He asked what was wrong and when I told him He held me and cried with me. Kelly was my saving grace. When I came home for Tyler’s funeral Kelly called me every night to see how I was doing. You would think that after the funeral the story would be over, right? Well, in truth this is not the first time I have told this story. About a year after Ty died I wrote out this story as a kind of closure for me. I left it at Tyler’s grave thinking that no one would ever find it. The next week as I was leaving Ty’s grave a truck pulled up and I just had a feeling I needed to stop and talk to these people. As I was walking back the lady that was there looked at me and said, “You’re the one who left the letter huh.” I said yes and we started talking. The woman was Tyler’s step-mom. Tyler’s dad was there also. He told me things about Tyler that I never knew. He told me how Ty worked a full-time job to help support his sister in all of the things she did. Ty’s mom was struggling a lot and Ty paid for all of his sister’s cheerleading things. They also told me that my letter was in the china cabinet with all of Ty’s pictures. Talking to them helped me find even more closure and I am eternally grateful to a Heavenly Father who knows what I need when I need it.