The Shoe

 We do not post much anymore about our accident in December of 2011.  Brian is now 16.  What 16 year old want to hear stories about themselves when they were seven?  Especially when the story is such a gut-wrenching one.

We share our story with the Children's Miracle Network Dance Marathons at UGA and GT each year.  We get a chance to brag about the hospitals and medical professionals that did so much for us. We have enjoyed getting to know the other families and the social scene of those events.Brian loves the students. Sharing the early days of our journey for the dance marathons is about as much as we want to relive it. So much is going on these days.  We try to look forward and not back.  

However, I want to relive a story that we are not able to share too often since it is not a part of the hospitals.  In fact, it was something we didn’t know about until months after it happened.

Two days after our accident Steven and Freiya Brown were driving down Old River Road to the Union United Methodist Church.  UUMC is a small church in very rural Bulloch County. Steve served as the pastor Freiya played the piano every Sunday morning. I remember Steve and Freiya fondly when they served as a counselor in the 1980’s for church youth trips that I attended.  They have a son around my age and we all attended Pittman Park UMC at that time.

Steve and Freiya were heading to Church the first Sunday in December of 2011,  They had heard about the accident two days before. .I don’t know if they even knew that they had a connection to me from over 20 years before, When they drove by the scene of the accident, they saw a child's tennis shoe on the side of the road.  They felt compelled to stop and pick it up.

They took that shoe and placed it on the altar of the church.  Our family was prayed for by the Browns and the entire congregation of UUMC for many months. The shoe remained on the altar the entire time. I’m certain they prayed for healing, understanding, peace, and prayers of thankfulness when Brian left hospice, checked out of the hospital, spoke his first words, took his first steps, and all the other joys that followed.

It was late spring before we heard that this happened.  We were not certain that it was Brians shoe. We did not know if Brian lost a shoe that night.    

The Browns invited my parents to a Sunday Service at UUMC on Old River Road in the Spring of 2012.  They presented the shoe to mom and dad after it stayed on the altar all that time.  Yes, it was indeed Brian's shoe.  

Freiya Brown passed away on February 20.  A casualty of the COVID-19 pandemic. Her funeral is tomorrow.  My parents and Ben, who is in his second year at Georgia Southern, will attend the service.  It is time for the Murkison’s to send our prayers to the Browns.  Rest in Peace Freiya.  Thanks for taking good care of Brian’s shoe!

*Note* some of the details of this story may be incorrect. The memory of such things as this sometimes changes details.