The beginning – April 1975

 

Michael Shannon Apr 1975Here are Shannon and me right at the start – sometime in April 1975. I think it may have been April 13, but I can’t guarantee it. She carried this picture around in her scriptures for many years, along with a picture of me taken at about the same time. Great Art courtesy of I have no idea who, featured a couple days ago on my Facebook account, taken on the balcony of Shannon’s building in Heritage Halls at BYU on a Sunday afternoon soon after we met and fell in love, and part of my famous Shannon series.

Oh, how that picture brings back some wonderful feelings. I love it.

Our weekend was okay. I found some more of Shannon’s personal things in the garage, so I spent some time looking through them. There were a bunch of the kids’ school papers and letters to her – all of them as sweet as could be. There were also a bunch of papers her dad had given her; I believe the purpose was to have Shannon (or me!) scan them all in and share them with the family. I gave all of them to Melanie on Saturday. There were also a few of Shannon’s journals. I spent some time reading them. She was such an intelligent, wonderful person. Melanie borrowed the journals for a while so she can read them too.

Speaking of which, I found yet a few more of Shannon’s journals tonight. I read just a few pages from a couple of them. It’s to late to read more tonight. I’ll read them from cover to cover later and feel close to her all over again.

Speaking of which, I figured out how to copy Shannon’s old voicemail messages onto my computer today. There are twenty of them, dating back to 2011. I’ve mentioned before how badly I wanted to be able to remember her voice. Now I have it. The messages are all mundane, but they’re precious to me.

Speaking of which, I went through Shannon’s computer today and copied all her photos and other documents to another hard drive. There weren’t very many pictures of Shannon on the computer, but there were a lot of pictures of me. That’s fair – I have tons of pictures of her on my computer and relatively few of myself. Such is the nature of photographs. I also found a ton of pictures of Mia and our kids, which is absolutely great. There were also a bunch of documents she wrote, of course. I have a lot of material to read and comfort me.

I’m planning on repurposing Shannon’s computer as the household server. The old Macbook currently doing that job is just a little too underpowered. I don’t think she’d mind.

I made reservations for my excursions on next week’s cruise. In Cabo, I’m going scuba diving the first day and then going to a nearby resort to hang out at the beach and pool the second day. In Puerto Vallarta, I’m going on a sundown horseback ride and dinner outing. I’m looking forward to trying all that stuff out.

Didn’t get any real work done today, even though I planned for this to be my first full-time workday. Got too involved in looking through Shannon’s things. I did manage to pay the bills today, which is something. I’ll try working again tomorrow. There’s lots to do.

And that’s it for tonight. I’ll leave my Loyal Readers with this exciting Morrowlife Employment Agency job opportunity: drug-smuggling cat!

See you tomorrow.

5 Responses to “The beginning – April 1975”

  1. Sandy Says:

    I love the picture!! Also glad you got to save the voicemails – I know that means a lot to you.

  2. Andy Says:

    I also spent a lot of very happy time in those mountains. Not so much down in Provo, but that’s Squaw Peak and the shoulder of Y Mountain in the back of the photo, where I passed many happy hours alone and with friends hiking, climbing, and exploring underground.

  3. Katy Says:

    I was thinking of her reading journals, actually, and wondered if you’d find them. I would love to read those, too.

  4. Julie Pita Says:

    What a great picture. You look so young!!!! This is how I remember Shannon looking the first time that I met her (or at least the first memory I have of her)–that year at Christmas that you brought her home. I remember her long, beautiful hair (and that she had to style it before she’d come down to open presents–I couldn’t understand why she wanted to look perfect on Christmas morning–presents seemed way more important than hair!)

  5. Paul Says:

    A new job for our cats!

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