The Holwerda Family Blog

As most of the Holwerda Family blog readers know, I have moved countless times throughout my life.  That in itself made life as a young child, extremely difficult.  Repeatedly getting my heart broken with each move to a new town or state.  A whole new culture of people to learn and meld with. The culture of people and friends I left behind, numerous times before. Great friendships formed then ripped apart by another move.  It's definitely not a lifestyle I would choose for my own kids, knowing first hand how devastating it is.   It teaches you a lot of difficult life lessons in many ways, but I would never want that for my kids.

Amongst the many moves in my life, the move from Tennessee to Michigan was the most difficult for me.  The people here in Michigan are just so different from those in the south.  Not just in Tennessee, but Florida which was the state we moved from just a year before that, with a quickie Georgia residency in between there.  The culture here is so different. The language here is so different and the way in which people interacted with one another here was,,,interesting to say the least.  I didn't get it. At all. So, for my first year living here we 'lived' in a couple of different places while I attended New Era school up in Shelby Michigan where I befriended a few people, but not many.  Shockingly, we managed to remain in the same school district for three whole years. In my last year, I got too comfortable with the temporary stability and allowed myself to form some friendships... My most favorite person of the people I let in, was Marivel.  She was this unique and interesting girl.  She was cool. She was honest and she and her family were humble.  I don't remember how we met or when we started to become friends, but she was a great person and a great friend.  Even though her mom hated me. hehe.  The funniest story that sticks out in my mind was this Shelby football game she and I went to with the intentions of me going back to her house for a pizza party sleepover thingy, but... I tripped and rolled my ankle while we were at the football game and had to go to the ER with my dad instead.  Her mom was pissed off for some reason or other concerning my ankle and loudly complaining about me, while I sat in the backseat of Marivel's dad's truck all the way back to their house.  They didn't speak English, I had no idea what was being said. haha.  Marivel and I had a great laugh about it on, Monday morning and agreed to try that again sometime only without the rolled ankle part.......

So then, we moved ...again.  Two weeks or so after that football game.  This time to Muskegon county which is actually where we ended up for the remainder of my school career.  I lost touch with, Marivel and everyone else from Shelby. I was only 12 years old and in a day of no cell phones, internet or beepers.  Keeping in touch meant a LOT more than it does now. It sucked, but  I got over it as I always did. However,  I never really let go of the memories like I had in my past.  I took solace in those memories. In a weird way, I knew memories of the good times were the only thing my parents could never move me away from.  Makes sense in a 12 year old's mind, anyway. :)  Years go by and the more comfortable I became with the idea of actually staying in ONE spot for longer than a few months to a year, the more friends I started to allow into my little world.  (a mighty world it was)  In my junior year of high school, most of my friends had moved away from me or had graduated / quit school.  I was feeling the other side of it for the first time and it really didn't suck any less than me being the one moving away.  I became close with one of my friends brothers, Mike.  He and I shared a class together and we shared a lot of the same interest.  Partying, mostly.  We were both pretty spectacular at partying. It sucked when  he graduated and moved on at the end of that year. As history has proven in the past many of times,,,we lost touch.

Fast forward about 15 years.  Three weeks ago, I see his sister on facebook, along with a few other people I had lost touch with from Musekgon and decided I would like to do some retouching of those people [yeah yeah... not that way, pervs!] and sent out a couple friends request.  In my disbelief, I see on his sisters suggested friends I may know (thanks facebook) Marty Brandel was one of them.  The face looked SO much like my friend, Marivel from Shelby.  I started stalking this persons facebook.  I couldn't really tell for sure, sure, but what I could tell was she was married to my junior year, best friend, Mike (or henry now ) from Muskegon and if fate was to play a any roll in this at all, him being her husband HAD to make her Marivel, right?  IT DID!  I was so excited, like imagine a little girl in a shop filled with fluffy kittens and ice cream, kind of excited and that was me in that moment.  We started emailing back and forth, reminiscing about old times, the football game, her moms cursing me out in a foreign language. lol. We talked a little about what happened in our lives during the times were were disconnected. All three of us, Mike, Mari and myself, couldn't believe how freaking small of a world we were living in at this point.  It was so surreal, but I was so happy....

A few days went by with no responses from either, Mike or Mari, but I thought nothing of it since it is Memorial day weekend and all.  Until, I logged in Sunday afternoon and see a last respect  post from the sister on Mari's Facebook wall.  Wishing her well and for her to rest in peace with the Lord.  I couldn't believe what I was reading and not just from Mike's sister... hundreds of people, all showing their last respects to her in the same way.   I still didn't believe it, and didn't for a few hours.  It just didn't seem right... It seemed like a set up for a REALLY sick joke, but unfortunately, it wasn't. The bestest person in my world at one point in time, had passed away the Friday before.  The woman I had JUST reconnected with in hopes of reforming that great friendship with again, was now gone.  For good.


I'm not sure what my feelings really are. I'm really sad, in a weird way.  I've dealt with death and loss many many MANY times in my life.  I'm usually greatly impervious to it.    My heart has pretty much turned that, caring about loss or death, part of itself off years ago.  My own personal defense against another inevitable loss,  mechanism if you will and yet, since I found out all I want to do is curl up in my bed and cry.   Then there is the stranger side of it, where I don't really even know her, who she was today.  I wasn't given the chance to get to know her, who she is now. Really, it's as if she was a stranger and she passed away, leaving me completely confused on how I am supposed to feel.  I'm heartbroken.  It's a feeling I haven't felt since I was really little, I think.  I've had sadness over boys and broken relationships.  I've been sad over the loss of a loved one.  This feels so much different from that so I'm just gonna call it, heartbreak. My heart is broken.  She was a great person through and through and she touched a lot of peoples hearts in her short life.  I'm so honored to have been one of them.

In short... I'm so happy that I found her again, if it were for only a week and a half, but I am heartbroken that I will never get to know her again. =(