Garrett Leon McConnell

 Why did you have to go?  I just can't breathe without you here.  I miss you so much! 

This is not a memory, it is more of a feeling.  I miss you more with each passing day.  When I look at your pictures, it just doesn't seem real that you are gone.  It has been so hard living without you.  If only I could talk to you, it would give me so much peace, but i know that you are gone and there is nothing I can do to bring you back.  Your memory lives on with me in every way.  I love you Garrett.  Love, Mom

I can't remember when it first began, but for as long as I can remember, Garrett LOVED music!  From the time he woke up in the morning until he went to bed at night, he listened to music.  All kinds of music, Rap Music, R&B, Soul, sometimes it would be the music that was played when I was growing up, I never could figure out why he liked some of it.  He loved to listen to Phil Collins, which i always thought to be funny, because his typical favorite was Rap......with artists like Snoop Dog or TuPac!  But he would listen to almost anything and knew every artist and every song, and ALL the words to every song.  It used to drive me crazy, I would turn it down, he would turn it back up, this went on for years!  He later loved artists like Jamie Foxx and Mariah Carey, he seemed to enjoy the love songs and ballads more then the anything else.  I remember how he would play the same song over and over when he liked it - it would drive me absolutely insane.  I later learned that he didn't do it to drive me insane, he did it to his friends too. Garrett was something special to everyone that he knew.  I remember most the songs that he would sing to me though, the Lionel Ritchie songs, the R Kelly songs.......how I would love to hear him sing to me again.  One of my fondest memories is of Garrett asking me to dance with him.  We (he, his friend Audrey and myself) decided to go out one night when he was feeling good, we went to the little bar next door, they had a dance floor and Garrett asked me to dance.  I didn't want to at first but I remember thinking how special it is for your son to want to dance with you, so I did.  He was something special.  Now I cry at so many songs that remind me of him.  So many memories of someone so very special and i was lucky enough to say that he was my son.  If only I could go back in time, there are so many songs that I would listen to with him.  My son, my hero.  I miss you. 

Some of my favorite memories are from Garrett's phone calls.  I lived and worked in Baltimore, MD and Newark, DE..........shortly after he graduated high school.  Then he moved to California to be with his girlfriend (Nikki / Hope) so we communicated via telephone for many years.  He would call me every day (unless he was getting in trouble :-)  , I would call him every day.  When i picked up the phone, he would many times sing to me a Lionel Ritchie song..........Hello, Is it me you're looking for......and it would make me smile immediately.  He did that for years, along with the calls where he would pretend to be someone else, trying to sell me something or acting ridiculous!  We would talk about nothing or everything, depending on what was going on.  I can still hear him say, Hey Mom, let me call you back, I gotta test drive.  And he would always call me back.  Then he would call Mamaw and talk to her for awhile.  He loved to talk on the phone.  I would give anything to have just one more call, with one more song or joke!   I still have his old phone # stored in my phone, it will never be removed.  I kept it active for a while but I finally let it go.  I do still have his old cell phones with pictures and messages.  I miss those calls so much.  I miss my Garrett so much. 

I wouldn't take anything for that brief moment in time when Garrett and I slipped away from everyone else and shared a few precious moments together at the pier in Santa Monica a few years ago.  Priceless!  
Garrett will always be in my heart and a source of inspiration to me which is why I'll be trotting for him in the Turkey Trot this year!  Garrett's Aunt, Sevella Mostella