Kristine

August 21, 2013

Kristine

"A woman's heart should be so hidden in God that a man has to seek Him just to find her."

~Max Lucado

First and foremost, let's get this out of the way. Once in 7th grade I was stupid enough to call Kristine a b-tch and she immediately punched me so freaking hard that I thought my stomach had ruptured and I could not move/breathe for a very long time. To this day, this is the hardest I've ever been hit, by anyone and I've been hit pretty hard by some pretty big people. Leave it to the shortest, most ferocious lioness to accomplish that.

Honestly it's any reason why any of my friends have stuck around for so long but she is one of a few that really applies to this statement. She's always been one of the best friends and best people I've ever been blessed to know. She is such a Christ like person in the sense that time and time again she's forgiven me and others for some pretty bad things. In our past I've had this ability to almost throw our friendship back in her face and let her down time and time again and yet she always forgives and forgets...well not always forgetting and sometimes the forgiving takes a minute (implied joke, this is where you laugh).

I met Kristine Osaka when I was dating Shauna Anderson in the first half of seventh grade and as they where best-friends at the time, Kristine naturally hated me. Sometime after Shauna, Kristine ended up warming up to me and we became friends thanks to a degree to our small engines class; that was until I slipped and ended up getting punched in the stomach which I deserved. She eventually calmed down and through the course of JR High, we spoke a lot, hung out at the occasional parties in which I am pretty sure both of us don't remember the details of. That pretty much sums up our friendship until her life started down a whole different path from a situation that would turn out to be the greatest blessing in her life.

Up until Kristine became pregnant with Kye, she was always one that was down to party, scrap, or help pull something crazy and get into trouble. She was also the only woman that everyone in school was smart enough to be afraid of because it didn't matter who you where, she'd make you pay if you crossed her or a friend. She was all this and yet at the same time she was fiercely loyal and loving to her friends because her friends where her family and nobody doubted that. She was one of the funniest and most fun people you could hang out with and yet at the same time she had so much anger boiling just right under the surface. So tenderhearted and she did anything possible to protect that heart from hurt and when it was hurt, you better watch out because you'd see everyone wanting a piece of whoever it was that hurt her. After she became pregnant she disappeared from the circle she apart of so she could do what she needed to do and only her most close friends spent time with her. I personally didn't see her much if at all due to my relationship at the time and it's unhealthy nature. I wouldn't see much of her until after that relationship ended and by then she had been a mother for a few months of one of the most cubby cheeked little guys I've ever seen; only my daughter would compare to the chubby cheeks Kye had as a baby.

After she became a young mother our friendship grew because we spent more time talking and just hanging out, even more so after my rocky relationship ended because Kristine and Cooper became two of my biggest supports in getting through it; even if all they could do at times was watch me sleep on Kristine's living room floor. The three of us spent quite a bit of time at each others house and just as much time at her neighbor's house, Shayla and Shawn Morrison. It was there that I for the first time got so stoned that everyone there had me dead convinced that I was in a invisible bubble and that I could not hear anybody, and they could not hear me. That was pretty much the routine from our senior year of High School until the end of the summer after we graduated, this is when Jesse returned home and he started living at my house.

After a little while I hit one of my darkest times and became a recluse who's life consisted of smoking pot non stop and playing GTA 3 all day in my parents basement. Kristine on the other hand was moving forward and moved out her mom's house into the LaDawn Apartments by my house. On the weekends she and Cooper would have to drag me out of the house to come hang out and party on the; sometimes this dragging was literal on Coopers end. As much as I fought it and them at the time; I always loved being with them and the help they where to me. Kristine always tried to help me feel better, see myself in a better light, and was always there for me. Yet every time she needed me, I was never there, always thinking more about myself then helping her. I remember one time when she called to vent to me, it was when A.J. and I had that crazy night and I could not concentrate on what she was saying and because of the LSD, she sounded scary and I tossed the phone to A.J. who promptly tried to talk to her but ended up hanging up on her. To this day I feel bad about that.

As the years have passed we've drifted more and more apart it seems. I blame myself because of my inability to be a good friend to her and while I was running in a mental circle; she was being a mother, being married, going to school, and working really hard as a single mom. We got to a point where besides the big moments like her weddings, my baptism, and occasional parties; we didn't see much of each other except on a few Christmas Eve's when I would meet up with her at her church and would go to the Christmas Eve Service. Those services are some of my most favorite memories I have being with Kristine; the other ones are when she would come over with Kye and we would talk while he slobbered all over my turtle pillow.

These days she works really hard and is always up to all good, she is raising a handsome young man, working hard at a good job, she also works really hard for her church and these days is a awesome example as to what a good Christian is. Mind you she does all of this without anyone's help and is a example of what a strong woman is and does. She's worked really hard and blossomed into a very strong and beautiful woman all around. She's beautiful mentally, physically, and spiritually and I am so blessed to be able to still call her a friend, even if we don't talk much. One of these days she will get all the blessings that she deserves.