Kenedy tried out for her last year of cheer and she made the Varsity sideline and competition team again! We are excited for her and look forward to cheering her on her last year of high school cheer. She and Tori were also selected to be the Varsity teams social officers which mean they plan all of the social events for the team such as team bondings. I think they will do a great job and will make this year a lot of fun for their team!
This next part is really difficult to write about and I have been putting it off because I have not known how to approach it...
Towards the beginning of the month Kenedy had open gym in preparation for tryouts. She went a little late and about half an hour after she left she called me and I could tell by the tremor in her voice that something was wrong. I immediately thought she had injured herself and was hoping it wasn't anything really bad but what she told me next was shocking and really unbelievably so sad. She said that the cheerleaders were just told that one of their teammates had killed himself right after school. At this point she was crying and I told her that she should just come home, I was sick to my stomach and really sick at heart for this boy and his family. Kenedy spent some time at the school talking with her teammates and I think it was good for her and them to talk this out.
When she came home to seemed to be doing ok but I could see she was in shock. She left on choir tour that night for three days which I think provided a good distraction for her.
The next monday she returned to school and then called me at about 1 asking if I would call her out of school. She said she had a headache and was feeling really anxious, I figured things were starting to hit her and said that I would. She came home and told us that after the cheer banquet Clay had written thank you cards to all the cheerleaders but for some reason she didn't get hers until that day. I imagine it was a difficult slap in the face to be handed this card at this point. It was a really sweet card telling her how much fun he had with her that year and that he looks forward to cheering with her again their senior year. She was having a difficult time but she has awesome friends, Wilson came over that night with a sonic drink for her and they talked and hung out for a couple of hours, as well as pretty amazing and loving Young Women leaders who have been calling and texting her.
A couple of weeks later his family had a life celebration for Clay at the park. The theme was red, white and blue because Clay was born on the fourth of July and all of the cheerleaders got stars and stripes hair bows. It was a potluck and I was afraid that they would not have enough food but the food tables were filled to overflowing and everyone got more then enough to eat with a ton of food left over. They had a video montage with pictures of Clay and anyone who wanted to were encouraged to come up and share stories about Clay. Kenedy got up with Audrey and she shared a story about when they were in sixth grade that Clay told his friends that he was going to try to stop swearing and if any of them heard him say a swear word that they had permission to hit him. Well not too much longer later he said a swear word and Kenedy's friend Lauryn slapped him across the face with out hesitation. Kenedy said the smack was so loud and left a handprint on Clay's face the rest of the day. She said it was really funny and he did ask for it.
After first asking permission from his Mom Kenedy and Audrey had me take a picture of them with Clays picture. I hope this day was therapeutic for all of the family and friends that were there, it was a beautiful day and a lot of fun memories were shared.
