Life Calls, Listen Up.

Laura Mather. She is mother to my brother and I's oldest friends on the planet. I was lucky to grow up next door to the Mather clan in Lily Lake, Wisconsin. My big brother, Tyler, and Laura's oldest son, Graham, were inseparable friends as little boys, so naturally when both families each had another son around the same time the two new baby boys would also become fast friends. Adam and I were buddies before we were potty trained, and his mom and dad, Laura and Ron, were like another set of parents to me and my brother and our's to Graham and Adam. We had amazing childhoods blessed in the rural settings of southeast Wisconsin. We grew up. Adam made Laura a grandma. She beamed in her grand daughter, Jade's, presence. Laura's memory beams in my heart. Laura passed away recently. Cancer finally took her from us after Laura had beaten it twice before. Life didn't give the Mather's the best hand as we grew up with a tragic car accident, cancer bouts, and the like, but the perseverance of the whole family was always something I have admired. No matter what came their way they always stuck together and fought through with the tenacity that only those who know the family well may really understand. The boys have lost their mother, and Ron his girl, but once again this clan will circle the wagons and take on life head long with this one tear in their eye, a fist of fight, and hearts full of love.