I will never forget the day I met Jeremiah Shelton Anders. He'd been sent to town to pick up tractor parts and supplies for the farm, and because he wasn't familiar with the town or the locations of the businesses we dealt with, I was volunteered to go with him. I wasn't exactly thrilled with the idea that I had to babysit the new guy, but as always, I jumped at a chance to get out and break the routine of sitting at a desk covered with paperwork and answering endless phone calls. So I went.
We picked up and dropped off what we needed and then spent the next few hours just driving around. Talking about everything..you name it. And, honestly, I don't think either of us wanted to pull back through the gate at the farm. But we did and went our separate ways for the rest of the day. Little did I know, it was the start of an truly unforgettable relationship.
Shelton taught me a LOT of things:
- the true definition of an all-American man
- how to get lost and un-lost in the woods in the middle of the night
- how to, after figuring out where we were, get a four wheeler on the other side of a fence without going through it
- how to spend hours in a garage and never get bored
- how to successfully skateboard without breaking my neck (in aforementioned garage)
- how to do a perfect doughnut
- how to drive a stick shift (the right way)
- how to get the courage up to jump off a thirty foot waterfall
- the best ways to spend Sunday afternoons
- how many nicknames one person could have
- how to spend the summer the right way
- every line of A River Runs Through It
- how to truly appreciate a great movie
- how to fall asleep during a boring movie
- that climbing out a second story window and sitting the roof is sometimes a good idea
- that "God is great, beer is good, and people are crazy" - the song by Billy Currington, is perfect to wake up to
- exactly how incredibly gorgeous a half naked guy can look in the bathroom while getting ready
- exactly how mad I could be at one person
- that even if I stormed off, the phone would always ring when I was less than a mile down the road
- how to smile until my face felt like it was going to break
- how to laugh until we cried
- what it was like to truly love someone
- how hard it is to let them go
Shelton passed away almost two years ago, and it has been one of the hardest things I've ever had to go through in my life. I never knew that losing someone could hurt so much.
And I don't believe time heals all wounds. There are some that remain, but the memories supersede the pain. The laughter. The crazy things we did. The little things that only made sense to the two of us. Everything. I became a better person and a stronger person because he made me see it. And for that I am forever changed and forever grateful. ❤
(Where's your mule that kicks holes in the sky and shakes off its saddle? Where's your slavering wolf of the rolling prairie? Here's your old grizzer brown bear can clobber bark off a gum tree. There's a man for you, Jeremiah Johnson. I'm half horse, half gator, and a touch of the earthquake. I got the prettiest gal, fastest horse, ugliest dog this side of hell. I can out-jump, out-run, throw down drag out and whip any man in all Kentucky. - Jeremiah Johnson, 1972)
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