“I need you to write a letter,” Mike told me.

“A letter for what?” I asked.

“Michael’s home page,” he replied.

Where do I begin? Do I begin at the point I stopped being able think straight? Do I talk about all the times I can’t breathe? Do I talk about all the tears shed in Michael’s name?

Michael Edward Kling was born May 21, 1987. Michael weighed ten pounds, one ounce at birth.

What can I - Michael’s mother - tell you about Michael? He was a good boy. He was a good son and brother. He was very smart, and of course, very handsome. He was funny and a class clown. Michael could get away with anything-because everybody likes Michael. There was just something about the boy that drew people to him.

Michael was not materialistic with things. Michael collected friends.

He was a talented writer, actor, and storyteller. Many writing projects-usually poetry assignments-would get written the night before they were due, and he’d receive an ‘A’. Once, he had to perform a monologue in English class, he did it so well, the teacher had him come in and perform for her other English classes. Often, when he would tell me something incredible, just when I quit saying “no, really?” and believe him, he’d say, “No, just kidding.”

Basketball. Basketball was Michael’s game. He was a definite crowd-pleaser. His former teammates in Japan wear armbands to honor his memory. His Alabama teammates were looking forward to playing with him. He had recently learned how to dunk the ball.

As a mother, there were many things I did not know about Michael. For example, he would do anything if dared. Friends from Sasebo, Japan have four years worth of outrageous memories. I didn’t realize he was such a good friend to everybody he would meet. He knew what to do to get a laugh and would do anything to make somebody smile. You were either Michael’s friend, or you didn’t know him.

Michael made the most of an opportunity. People in Alabama thanked me for sending him to them. Schoolmates at Sylvania told me he brought them closer together as a class because, if you wanted to hang with Michael, you had to hang with whomever else was hanging with him.

I found out those things about Michael after he was tragically killed in a car accident on November 1, 2003, at sixteen years, five months and eleven days old.

Parents are not supposed to bury their children. Ribbons on flower arrangements should not read ‘Grand son’ or ‘Great Grand son’. High school children should not be mourning the loss of a friend. Yet they do.

We need to be happy for the time we all had Michael. We need to celebrate Michael. We all have a piece of Michael in our heart, and he carries us with him.

This letter will never be complete. Because I no longer am.