My amazing friend Kim Lattanze passed away in an auto accident in 1986. Years later, the Chicken Soup for the Soul people called and asked me to contribute an essay to their latest compilation Chicken Soup for the College Soul. I wrote about Kim and how she reached out to me - a shy, gangly college boy. The editors decided to edit out the news of her passing in the final version of the story. Here it is:


My Friend Kim - Chicken Soup for the College Soul

I’d seen her around campus long before I pledged the Kappa Sigma fraternity the winter of my sophomore year. I’d admired her from afar—the epitome of the untouchable college beauty. I’d decided that if I were forced to choose one perfect girl, she would be the one. Even though our paths crossed several times a day, I felt as if she lived in some remote corner of a distant universe. I was sure she had no clue I existed.

She was there the night, several weeks into my pledgeship, when I was invited to join the brothers at a local honky-tonk. A favorite band was playing that night, and I welcomed the chance to get out of my stuffy dorm room and away from the grind of studying.

I arrived late and took a seat at a table alone in the back of the room. The others didn’t notice me from their front row of clustered chairs near the stage, but I didn’t care. I was in no mood to socialize with the same slave drivers who made me scrub the floors and take out the trash. I made a pact with myself to hang out for fifteen minutes and then beat a hasty retreat.

I heard a familiar laugh. . . . Then I saw her. She was sitting among them, and I wondered who had made her laugh, wishing it had been me. She seemed to shine, making everything and everybody else in the room fade to insignificance. I looked around and wondered if anybody else saw her, but they all seemed too caught up in their corners of conversation to notice. How could they not? She was stunning. Radiant. I discovered that if I shifted my chair a little to the left, I had a clear view of her. I could watch her surreptitiously—the band in front of her providing the perfect cover.

I imagined myself sauntering up to her and asking her to dance. What would she say? Would she just laugh or simply look right through me? Maybe my voice would crack, and I’d turn and slink away as if it had all been a mistake. Then I could simply spend the rest of my college years going around corners and taking roundabout routes to avoid seeing her.

At that moment, she turned toward the back of the room—her eyes searching as if she’d felt my thoughts on her. I blushed bright red when her gaze rested on me. I saw her lean over and whisper something to one of the brothers, and then she got up and weaved her way back through the cluster of tables. She was coming toward me.

For a moment, my heart began to race, thumping so violently I was sure she could see the fabric on my shirt moving. I looked over my shoulder and saw the “Restroom” sign. I breathed a sigh of relief. Who was I kidding? I took one last sip of my ginger ale. It was time to go home.

“Hey, Rob, what are you doing back here all by yourself?”

I looked up, and she was standing right in front of me. She was smiling as if we’d known each other all our lives. I swallowed hard. My voice vanished into thin air. She pulled out a chair and sat down at my table.

“How’d you know my name?” I finally managed to mumble, several octaves higher than normal.

“I asked around,” she said with a twinkle in her brown eyes. “I always make a point of knowing the names of all the cute guys on campus.”

I flushed a deep crimson, and even though I’m sure she noticed, she didn’t mention it. She took a sip of my ginger ale and began to talk. She told me all about herself. Where she grew up. What her family was like. Her favorite movies, what she liked to eat, her hopes and dreams and disappointments. Fifteen minutes turned into a half hour, an hour became two. We talked and laughed like old friends. There were people all around and a band playing somewhere behind us, but I’d long since lost consciousness of the din of voices, the music, the smell of smoke. We’d slipped into our own world—one where a new friendship was being born.

By the time the band finished its third encore, Kim Lattanze had stepped off the pages of my imagination and into my life. She hugged me good-bye at the door and walked off into the night.

We became the best of college friends in the months and years that followed. On graduation day, we hugged good-bye and promised to always stay close. At first, we kept our pledge with cards, letters and numerous phone calls. Sometimes we’d run into each other at some alumni gathering or football game. She’d take me by the hand and pull me to a corner, where we’d take up right where we left off as she’d pepper me with questions about my family, career and love life. We’d always leave with a promise to be a little better at staying in touch.

But soon the times between promises grew longer and longer, and our paths took us in different directions. She moved to Atlanta and became a buyer for a department store, and I eventually packed up and drove to California to try my hand at screenwriting.

Fifteen years later, my thoughts sometimes still drift back to those college days. I recall an evening—a moment kept alive in the memory of Kim’s smiling eyes. One small but unforgettable minute in time. A shy boy, a beautiful girl and the precious gift of friendship she’d brought to my table that night.

And now, when I invariably find myself scanning the corners of rooms at parties, I stay vigilant—always on the lookout for that timid stranger who might feel a little out of place, a little left out. I can recognize myself in those bashful souls, and then I think of Kim. What would she do in a situation like this? I walk over and say hello.

I continue to be a lazy blogger by simply posting essays I had published long ago. Hopefully, this one never gets old.

Calling on a Girl Named Becky

By Robert Tate Miller MARCH 3, 1995 - The Christian Science Monitor

'MAY I help you?'' the man behind the counter at the ceramic shop asked. I barely heard him. My gaze was transfixed by the pretty teenager perched on the stool beside him. Her curly brown hair, round rosy cheeks, and shimmering green eyes were so distantly familiar. Once upon a time, eyes like those had captured a schoolboy's heart.

In the summer of 1973, Becky came to work as a waitress at my family's quaint stone inn in the mountains of North Carolina. She burst through the swinging kitchen doors one June morning just as I was sitting down to breakfast. It was love at first sight.

Becky was 16. I was 11. She was pretty, vivacious, and outgoing. I was shy, a little on the pudgy side, and, heretofore, more inclined toward bullfrogs and tree climbing than creatures of the fairer sex.

But there was something about Becky. The certain way she tossed back her head whenever an unwelcome curl drifted down over her eye. Her habit of chewing on the nail of her pinkie finger when she was lost in thought. The way she gracefully tucked her pencil behind her ear after taking an order. Becky was no garden-variety girl.

''What's that?'' Becky would ask innocently, pointing to some imaginary speck just south of my Adam's apple. I always fell for it, and she relished bringing her finger up to pop me on the chin when I looked down. ''Gotcha gain,'' she'd say grinning.

The summer of '73 Becky gave me a boy's greatest keepsake -- attention. She was never too busy to share a secret, a joke, or a playful flick of a wet dish towel. In return, I cleaned off her tables, fetched her soft drinks, sneaked her extra desserts, and worshiped the ground she walked on.

''I think he's cute,'' Becky whispered one afternoon just loud enough for me to overhear. ''Especially when he blushes.''

''Becky, I love you,'' I boldly ventured one morning into the bathroom mirror. ''I'll love you till the end of time.''

Unfortunately, our time was sliding by like a well-waxed shuffleboard disk, and there was nothing I could do to slow it.

''Robbie, can I talk to you for a minute?'' Becky asked one stormy August afternoon. My heart was racing. What could she want? Would she finally confirm her love for me?

''I'm going back to school soon,'' she announced. ''I won't be around much anymore.'' I swallowed hard. ''You've been a great friend,'' she said quietly. ''I'll miss you very much.''

I struggled to stay composed. I had worked so hard for her to see me as a grown-up and I didn't want to fall apart now. But when she grew blurry, and my chin began to quiver, I knew there was no turning back.

''I love you,'' I said abruptly and then cried my eyes out.

For a few minutes she watched me -- a bit startled by my sudden sobbing confession. Then she gently took my hand.

''Robbie,'' she spoke softly. ''I think you're very special and I love you so much as my friend. But I'm not the one for you, and I think, deep down, you know that.''

Slowly, like a steam engine pulling into the station, my sobbing ground to a halt.

Becky smiled at me until she forced me to smile back. ''Someday,'' she confided, ''you're going to find a girl so wonderful you'll know she's the right one for you. Then, you'll forget all about me. I promise you.''

''May I help you,'' the ceramic-shop man repeated a bit more firmly. ''Is Becky in?'' I muttered finally. ''Are you a friend of hers?'' he shot back suspiciously.

''Sort of,'' I mumbled. ''About 20 years ago she spent the summer waitressing at my family's inn. My father and I were waxing nostalgic last evening, and her name came up. He said I might be able to find her here.''

His furrowed brow softened and he extended his hand. ''I'm her husband. This here's her daughter.'' The girl snatched the phone from the wall and began dialing. ''Becky's at home today,'' the man explained. ''She's not been well.''

''Momma, somebody here knows you.'' The girl spoke in her customary mountain twang. ''He says you used to work at his family's inn.'' She listened for a moment and then wordlessly handed me the phone.

I stared at it in my hand as if holding one for the first time. She smiled a dimpled smile that seemed to say, ''go ahead.''

''Hi, Becky,'' I stammered a bit too energetically. The other end of the line was completely still. Five seconds. Ten.

''Robbie, is that you?'' The voice I knew. It was deeper, more grown-up -- but unforgettable.

''It's me,'' I assured her.

''Well, how have you been?'' she asked with a smile in her voice.

''Fine, Becky. How about you?''

We reminisced -- small talk among long-lost friends trying to fold 20 years into a five-minute phone conversation.

''I have such happy memories of that summer,'' Becky said at last. ''I am so touched you remembered. I only wish I could be there to see you because, you really made my year.''

''But, Becky,'' I said smiling at the girl across the counter, ''I'm looking at you right now.''

''Now, don't you go and fall in love with my daughter,'' she teased.

My cheeks flushed bright red. I was 11 again.

A year for which I'd waited a lifetime

By Robert Tate Miller JANUARY 20, 2000

Hi readers! Here's a look back at the summer of 2003 when my NBC movie, "Secret Santa," was filmed here in LA. Good times! 

By Robert Tate Miller, Contributor to The Christian Science Monitor DECEMBER 12, 2003
LOS ANGELES — As snowflakes swarmed in the glow of the streetlamp, actress Jennie Garth - decked out in a heavy overcoat and gloves - fanned herself to stave off the heat.

Blizzards in Los Angeles in June are only a slightly less frequent occurrence than one occurring off-camera that day: I was a writer standing in a place few writers are welcomed - the set of his own movie.

Six months had passed since I'd first read the treatment for the TV movie that would become "Secret Santa." Producer Beth Polson's synopsis put forth a whimsical supposition: What if a cynical newspaper reporter journeyed to a town in search of a mysterious philanthropist - and ended up finding something more than she'd bargained for? I felt the yarn held a plausible premise and I buckled down to pen the script.

CUT TO: ONE MONTH LATER. The teleplay was complete, and I'd arrived at the moment screenwriters most dread. My newborn "baby" was off to live with a new family, and I wouldn't be granted visitation rights. It was only my second movie, but I'd been around enough to know that writers were about as welcome on a movie set as a rabid possum at a Brownie campout.

The first time out, I'd naively phoned the producer on set to ask if I could drop by and say hello. He abruptly cut off the conversation, promising to call right back. The next time I saw him was five months later at a media event where he looked at me as if he was struggling to put a name with my vaguely familiar face. Needless to say, I was wary that "Secret Santa" would merely be a sequel to the previous unpleasantness. Then, I received the shock of my professional life.

"Just so you know," Beth informed me the day before production began, "you are welcome on set."

I asked her to clarify when I was welcome. "Always," she said succinctly. "After all, you're the writer."

From Day 1, the cast sought me out to offer kind words about the script and did their best to make me feel welcome. When I went out of town one Friday, Garth welcomed me back on Monday with a playful scolding for writing a scene that had kept her busy plucking flecks of mud out of her hair all weekend.

Being on set, I learned that the best laid scenes can be ruined in an instant by a barking dog, a backfiring car, or an irrepressible sneeze. I discovered that the writer's cavalier choice to set a scene at night could throw the whole week's shooting schedule out of whack. I learned that "check the gate" means it's time to move on to the next set-up, and that a "martini" shot says it's almost time to go home. I learned that a good director can make the impossible a reality and a good actress can turn a simple line into a magic moment.

The huge crew had even managed to tiptoe around a nuns' retirement home. ("Shhh," Beth admonished everyone one night. "The nuns are sleeping.") The sisters had agreed to let us invade their shaded sanctuary after approving the script and learning that June Cleaver herself, Barbara Billingsley, would be a resident in the film home. So far, the 18-day shoot was just swell.

SCENE TWO: "The movie's short," Beth greeted me one morning. "We need more meat."

I felt I'd been socked in the solar plexus. The dilemma was immediately clear: How do I add to the script without it looking as if I was adding to the script? I desperately scoured each page, looking for any scene that could use a bit of flesh and then, just when I was about to admit defeat, I remembered Scene 84, the walk. This was our reporter's romantic stroll with the mysterious millionaire. I flipped to the scene, and my hunch was right. She did most of the talking. Maybe it was time to find out more about him.

"I like it," Beth said the next day. Our male lead now had a page worth of personal history to learn - and fast.

CUT TO: "Report to wardrobe immediately." It was the last night of shooting, more extras were needed for the Christmas party scene, and I was a warm body. The costumer took one look at my 6-foot, 4-inch frame and announced that she didn't have a jacket my size. Minutes later, I was standing on my mark wearing a yard-sale sweater. I was ready for my Hitchcock moment. Then the director called "action," and I proceeded to blindside a cluster of fellow extras. "Cut!"

"It's a wrap." The famous words were spoken just after midnight. As I watched the cast and crew file away, I wished I could cling to my Christmas in June just a little bit longer.

Miracle on Highway 25

     It was the autumn of 1965 when my dad decided to cut ties from his secure nine to fiver in Atlanta and move our family to an uncertain future in a tiny western North Carolina mountain town. Dad loathed sameness and monotony and especially detested working for someone else. He wanted to be bold, take a risk, and make his own way in the world. And so, sight unseen; he made a deal to purchase the Bonaire Motel in Flat Rock, North Carolina.

     My mother may have been skeptical of this uncertain venture; she may have been downright terrified of taking a young family with two little kids and heading off to parts unknown. But there was no way she’d ever tell my father that. Mom was solidly in Pops’ corner, for better or worse, and would be for the rest of his far-too-brief life.

    And so it came to be that on an autumn evening in `65 we Millers packed into the family wagon and headed off on the five-hour drive to our new life. I was only three years old at the time but still remember the trip clear as yesterday. In those days, kids were allowed to bounce around a car like a jumping bean on speed, and nobody paid it any mind. There were no seatbelt or car seat laws. You could hang your body out the window and yodel at the moon if you wanted.

    It was already past my bedtime when we started our journey, so I curled up on the floor beneath the glove compartment. It was a wonderfully dark and comfy little nook, and the rhythmic clacks of the highway pleats soon lulled me to sleep.

     I awoke sometime the next morning in my new bed in our new home – which happened to be the dank basement of a quaint little roadside motel. Truth be told, the Bonaire looked a bit like Bates Motel - only no scary house on the hill. From the lobby in the main building, you looked out through a large picture frame window on a row of eight rooms just across the parking lot. The rates ranged from six to eight dollars a night.

    It was still peak autumn colors season when we arrived, so the joint was packed. And, though the first few days were a little chaotic for my parents, they were happy as clams in their new life. All was well for a few weeks…and then it wasn’t.

    The problem with North Carolina’s stunningly colorful fall is that it doesn’t last. The bright hues fade, and the leaves die and shrivel and fall. And, for my novice innkeeper parents, that fact of nature was not good news. Soon the leafy lookers had all gone home, and the Bonaire parking lot was left empty.

    My parents weren’t worried at first. They figured it was just a temporary downturn. But, as days turned into weeks and autumn turned to winter, Mom and Dad’s initial optimism faded.

     Each evening, my mother would stand in the lobby and gaze out the window at the darkened row of empty rooms. She’d watch and wish and pray.

     “Please, God. Send us guests for our rooms.”

     It was a simple prayer that she repeated again and again. Whenever a car would come rolling down Ol’ Highway 25, she’d perk up, thinking maybe her prayer had finally worked. She watched for the car to slow, to flip on its blinker and turn into the motel lot. But, despite her tirelessly hopeful one-sided conversation with God, there were no blinkers that winter. The cars kept going. 

     As the icy January of 1966 morphed into frigid February, things began to look bleaker and bleaker. My parents’ meager savings had been used up. My father was despondent. Again and again he lamented his mistake in moving us away from our safe and secure life. He talked about packing us up and heading back to Atlanta. Maybe he could beg for his old job back. Mom convinced him to wait a little while longer. She wasn’t ready to give up – just yet.

     Each night she continued to hold her fruitless vigil, staring out that lobby window at the cold and empty rooms. “Please, God. Send us guests for our rooms. We’re good people. Our rooms are clean and comfortable. Please help my family.” She knew that God was up there and that He had to hear her, so she couldn’t understand why he wasn’t helping out. “Show me what I need to know,” Mom despaired one night. “Show me the way.”

     Then a flicker of a thought crossed her mind. What if she was going about it all wrong? What if the tone of her prayer had been misguided all along? She knew at that moment that she’d had it all backwards. My mother would call this inspiration an “angel message.”

She suddenly remembered Elisha’s prayer for his servant in II Kings:

“Open his eyes, Lord, so that he may see.”

     My mother asked that God open her eyes. In an instant, she switched from fear and doubt to gratitude and hope. She’d been so busy asking God to bail out her family, she’d forgotten to give thanks to God for all the blessings He’d bestowed on her family. The Millers had so much to be grateful for, and she really had no business asking for more. She knew this was the answer to her prayers. Mom remembered how Jesus thanked God before he raised Lazarus from the tomb:

“Father, I thank thee that thou hast heard me.”

 

     She realized that - if she truly believed in the power of prayer - she shouldn’t wait to give gratitude until after she received what she was praying for. She needed to be grateful first to prove her faith. So, right then and there – without any change in the present desperate circumstances - she gave thanks to God. It was like an impromptu Thanksgiving in the dead of a dark winter’s night. She knew at that moment that everything was going to be okay.

     “Within just a few minutes,” my Mom recalled years later, “a pair of headlights appeared down Highway 25. As the car drew near the motel, the blinker came on. As they pulled into the drive, another car appeared, then another and another. In less than fifteen minutes there was a line of people waiting at the counter to check-in. The rooms were filled that night, and, in all the years we owned that motel, we never faced that problem again.”

“Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning.” James 1:17.

Dear Sarah Jessica Parker:

There is zero point zero percent chance you remember this, but once upon a time in a land far away we spent a couple of days together. And you were awesome.

Summer, 1988. Jacksonville, Florida. I was working as a promotions producer (called ourselves promosexuals) at Channel 17, the local NBC affiliate. My job was to try and coerce our handful of viewers (we were number three in a tiny market) to watch our tired reruns of The A-team, Good Times and Magnum, PI. It was a thanklessly unglamorous job that paid peanuts and only sounded impressive to those who thought anything that had to do with TV was “really cool.”

One day, our Promotions Director called me into his office to inform me that my job description had been expanded to “celebrity liaison.”

“Ever hear of an actress named “Sarah Jane Parker?” he said.

“No,” I said.

“Doesn’t matter,” he said. “I need you to schlep her around for a few days. Can you handle that?”

“Sure,” I said.

I did my research and found out that Sarah Jane Parker was, in actuality, Sarah Jessica Parker.  She was starring on a little known NBC Show called “A Year in the Life.” The show was a critical darling, so the network was doing anything it could to pump up the ratings. They were sending one of their promising young starlets out on the road do a little local promotion. We were just one of a dozen plus stops on her promotional tour. My job was to pick her up at the airport and shuttle her around for a couple or days. I was bored, so it was a welcome diversion.

I watched an episode of her show to make sure I knew who she was and thought she was pretty cute with her otherworldly 1980s hair.

As I drove to the airport to meet her plane, I steeled myself. I’d heard horror stories of prima donna diva TV stars and imagined her arriving with a cadre of handlers. She was going to blow her stack when she discovered that I’d come driving a crappy Honda Civic no bigger than a shoebox.    

I was a little taken aback when Sarah Jessica Parker walked off the plane alone and smiling. She came right over to me. “You’re Rob?” she said.

“Yes,” I said.  She was a bit more petite than I’d imagined, had arguably the bluest eyes I’d ever seen, and the hair was even more impressive in person. Her smile was no faux I-know-people-are-watching-so-I’m-trying-to-seem-like-a-nice-person smile. It was genuine. I knew first impressions could be deceptive, but this three-named chick seemed sincere.

“Hi Sarah,” I croaked like Peter Brady on the episode where his voice is changing. “Welcome to Jacksonville.”

I asked if there were others, and she assured me she was all alone. Wow, no entourage. What kind of TV star was this?

I apologized for my car. I assumed that all celebrities drove around in stretch limos all day, and I wanted her to know that this would not be happening while she was with me. She put me at ease, told me that her car was also a compact. Sure, I thought. Sure, it is.

I made idle chitchat as we hummed down I-95 towards her hotel. I was nervous enough around ordinary members of the opposite sex, but this was a celebrity and a dad gum attractive one at that. I couldn’t even believe we were breathing the same air much less sharing the same cramped little stick shift.

As we rolled by the lights of downtown, I gave my star passenger a quick rundown on the lovely the city of Jax. I pointed out the Jacksonville Landing in the distance, told her that was where all the cool shops and restaurants were located.

“Wanna go hang out?” she said.

I wasn’t sure I’d heard right. “Excuse me?” I said.

“Would you like to hang out for awhile?”

“Uh, sure,” I said. “Fine. Let’s go hang out.”

I took her to a quiet little seafood joint on the St. Johns River. It was just starting to rain, and Sarah Jessica suggested it would be fun to eat outside under an umbrella.

“Reminds me of Paris,” she said as we settled into our table-for-two. “Okay,” she said. “Ask me a question. Anything you want to know.”

I hadn’t exactly prepared myself for an interview, so the best I could blabber was “Do you know Rob Lowe?”

She smiled and said that he was one of her best friends and a good guy. “Next.” I followed up with the similarly scintillating query, “Do you know Michael J. Fox?” She told me how they’d recently gone out on a date, and the paparazzi had followed her into the bathroom.

By the time the check arrived, I’d worked myself through the entire Brat Pack, and she’d fielded my fan boy questions with patient enthusiasm. I found out that she’d been Annie on Broadway and had been in a movie with Kevin Bacon called Footloose.

It was after midnight when I finally dropped her off at her hotel. I told her I’d see her first thing in the morning.

For the next couple of days, Sarah Jessica Parker and I were pretty much inseparable. I drove her to radio and newspaper interviews and promo shoots. I’d let her use my office phone to call boyfriend Robert Downey Jr. who was shooting a movie called “1969” with another of her best buddies, Keifer Sutherland, just up the road in Savannah.

In between our official business, we’d go to the mall or to eat or to just hang out and talk. There was something about her that struck me as unusual – or least something I hadn’t experienced all that often. She was just…nice. This pretty TV star was unselfish and thoughtful. Whenever she ran into a store to pick up something for herself, she’d always bring me back something, too. A candy bar. A Slurpee. Cracker Jacks. Whenever somebody approached her to say hello or ask for an autograph, she was genuinely friendly and approachable. Sarah Jessica Parker seemed to be head over heels in love with life – and the wacky people that populated hers.

And SJP seemed to intuitively know the exact thing to say to make someone feel ten feet tall.

There was a particularly shy and awkward young man at the station and, when I introduced Sarah to him, she seemed to intuitively sense it. “Sarah. This is Joe. People say he looks a little like Keifer Sutherland.”

“Oh, he’s MUCH better looking than Keifer,” Sarah said. Joe blushed bright pink, and I wondered if she knew that she’d made his life.

By the time I drove my celebrity guest back to the airport to drop her off for her flight home to LA, she had stopped being a TV star. She was just Sarah – a cool girl who I really liked hanging out with. I felt comfortable enough with her to ask her advice.

“Sarah, I’m thinking of quitting my job and moving to LA. I think I want to be a screenwriter.”

“Do it,” she said. “If you don’t, you’ll regret it. Never be afraid to be bold.”

As I dropped her off at the gate and said goodbye, she gave me a hug. “Look me up when you come to LA. I’ll fix you up with someone.”

I smiled and said I would.  She turned back and blew me a kiss just before disappearing down the boarding ramp.

As I drove back to the TV station and my ordinary celebrity-free life, I thought about what Sarah Jessica Parker had said about boldness. Six weeks later, I rolled out of town with my little compact crammed to the gills with my meager possessions. I was headed west.

I made it to Hollywood four days later with Sarah Jessica Parker’s phone number in my shirt pocket. I never called her. Maybe I didn’t want to bother her, maybe I wanted to make something of myself first. Before long, her promising career took off full flight. SJP became a household name, an American icon. I watched from a distance and wondered if her legion of fans really knew what an amazing person she truly was. I decided to take her advice and be bold. I wrote a movie script. It made the rounds for a few years and then…one day – the phone rang.

When it finally got made, I found it ironic that my first movie starred Kristin Davis – one of SJP’s Sex and the City co-stars.

One morning John Evans shuffled into my life. A ragged-looking boy, he was decked out in oversized hand-me-down clothes and worn-out shoes that split apart at the seams.

John was the son of black migrant workers who had recently arrived in our small North Carolina town for a season of apple picking. These laborers were the poorest of the poor, earning barely enough to feed their families.

Standing at the head of our second-grade class that morning, John Evans was a hapless sight. He shifted from foot to foot as our teacher, Mrs. Parmele, penned his name in the roll book. We weren't sure what to make of the shoddy newcomer, but whispers of disapproval began drift

"What is that?" the boy behind me mumbled. "Somebody open a window," a girl said, giggling. Mrs. Parmele looked up at us from behind her reading glasses. The murmuring stopped, and she went back to her paper work.

"Class, this is John Evans," Mrs. Parmele announced, trying to sound enthusiastic. John looked around and smiled, hoping somebody would smile back. Nobody did. He kept on grinning anyway.

I held my breath, hoping Mrs. Parmele wouldn't notice the empty desk next to mine. She did and pointed him in that direction. He looked over at me as he slid into the seat, but I averted my eyes so he wouldn't think that I held promise as a new friend.

By the end of his first week, John had found firm footing at the bottom of our school's social ladder. "It's his own fault," I told my mother one evening a dinner. "He barely even knows how to count."

My mother had grown to know John quite well through my nightly commentary. She always listened patiently but rarely uttered more than a pensive "hmmm" or "I see."

Can i sit by you? John stood in front of me, lunch tray in hand and a grin on his face. I looked around to see who was watching. "Okay," I replied feebly.

As I watched him eat and listened to him ramble on, it dawned on me that maybe some of the ridicule heaped on John was unwarranted. He was actually pleasant to be around and was by far the most chipper boy I knew.

After lunch we joined forces to conquer the playground, moving from monkey bars to swing set to sandbox. As we lined up behind Mrs. Parmele for the march back to class, I made up my mind that John would remain friendless no longer.

Why do you think the kids treat John so badly?" I asked one night as Mother tucked me into bed.

"I don't know," she said sadly. "Maybe that's all they know."

"Mom, tomorrow is his birthday, and he's not going to get anything. No cake. No presents. Nothing. Nobody even cares."

Mother and I both knew that whenever a kid had a birthday, his mother would bring cupcakes and party favors for the entire class. Between my birthday and my sister's, my mom had made several trips herself over the years. But John's mother worked all day in the orchards. His special day would go unnoticed.

"Don't worry," Mom said as she kissed me good-night. "I'm sure everything will turn out fine." For the first time in my life, I thought she might be wrong.

At breakfast the next morning I announced that I wasn’t feeling well and wished to stay home.

"Does this have anything to do with John's birthday?" Mother asked. The bright-red flush on my checks was the only answer she needed. "How would you like it if your only friend didn't show up on your birthday?" she asked gently. I thought it over for a moment and then kissed her good-bye.

I wished john a happy birthday first thing in the morning, and his embarrassed smile showed me that he was glad I had remembered. Maybe it wouldn't be such a horrible day after all.

By midafternoon I had almost decided that birthdays weren't that big a deal. Then, as Mrs. Parmele was writing math equations on the blackboard, I heard a familiar sound coming from the hallway. A voice I knew was singing the birthday song.

Moments later Mother came through the door with a tray of cupcakes aglow with candles. Tucked under her arm was a smartly wrapped present with a red bow on top.

Mrs. Parmele's high-pitched voice joined in while the class stared at me for an explanation. Mother found John looking like a deer caught in car headlights. She put the cupcakes and gift on his desk and said, "Happy birthday, John."

My friend graciously shared his cupcakes with the class, patiently taking the tray from desk to desk. I caught Mother watching me. She smiled and winked as I bit into the moist chocolate frosting.

Looking back, I can scarcely remember the names of the children who shared that birthday. John Evans moved on shortly thereafter, and I never heard from him again. But whenever I hear that familiar song, I remember the day its notes rang most true: in the soft tones of my mother's voice, the glint in a boy's eyes and the taste of the sweetest cupcake.

I've always wanted to write a tearjerker. There have been any number of books and movies over the years that have brought a lump to my throat and made my eyes go moist. Usually, it's simple moments that do the trick. In October Sky, it's when Homer finally lets his pigheaded daddy know that he's his true hero. In the wonderful Seabiscuit, it's when Red takes The Biscuit on a ride through the countryside, letting the magnificent horse run free. In The Lion King...well, you know the one. If I write about it here, I won't be able to finish this blog. Tearjerkers are some of the best stuff of life and - with Forever Christmas - I'd like to add my own contribution to the anthology.  

This is not just a story to touch the heart but a story to make one think. Do we really and truly appreciate the loved ones in our lives? Do we, perhaps, sometimes take them for granted? This little Christmas story is about a man who took his beloved wife for granted and then lost her before he could tell her all the things he'd always wanted to say. Before he could make things right. I can't imagine an emptier feeling. However, in Forever Christmas, this fella meets an angel who gives him another shot, a second chance to prove to his late wife just how very much he loves her. Unfortunately, there's a catch. His reprieve is only for three days. When 11:58 Christmas Eve rolls around, his sweet but ill-fated wife will still meet her tragic fate, and there's not a thing he can do about it.

Or is there…?