When I was a little girl, I gave my heart to Jesus at Cody's church during VBS. I was so excited. It didn't take me long to come to the conclusion that I needed to be baptized. So I talked with Cody about it. I always looked up to him. He was my cool, older cousin and I thought he knew everything. He told me "Yea, it's a good thing to do. And it really aint that bad. The water is nice, not too warm and not too cold. He also told me the worse part of it was you had to be naked. You couldn't be baptized in your clothes." I said, "NAKED??" He said, "Yep! But its not so bad because these are church folk and they don't mind." I  told him that I didn't know if I wanted to do this now or not and he told me I had to because the Bible said so. He had me scared to death about being baptized. LOL.. I did get baptized, but it wasn't until I married Wilson years later.. and no, I wasn't naked..lol.

I think anyone that knows my Mom, knows how she felt about Cody. She never made it a secret, and if you didn't ask she would tell you!

But what I want to tell is our trip to Waldron last year. It was about the middle of May (you can do the timing). Someone, somewhere, had gotten something mixed up with her taxes, and she had gotten a notice from Cody's office about it.  She called Cody up and said "don't you let them put my name in the paper!" (he didn't......LOL)

Well, we were down there the next morning, checkbook in hand. I asked her if she wanted me to go in and take care of it, and my polite offer was refused. "No, Cody told me to come get him and he'd take care of it." Well, we pulled up and got out, they had to call Cody and he came out. He took her by the arm and away they went. And as usual when Cody was around, she forgot that I was even there!!  LOL

So I went on out to the car and waited. In a few minutes here they came, arm in arm. I'm not sure who had the biggest grin on their face. But I think we all do! I remember Mom saying, "Cody I have one more favor to ask you". She said "you have to promise me that you will be one of my pallbearers one of these days." And his reply was, "Ms. Nelson, I'd be honored but we sure hope that's going to be a long time from now". We would never have dreamed that would be the last time we got to talk to Cody.

I remember the morning I got to work and found out they were calling out our SAR team to come to Scott Co., and that Cody and Joel were missing. My heart sank, but I still had hope. I didn't want to go tell Mom because she tends to worry herself sick when something is wrong with one of her "kids". When I finally heard that Cody had been found, I went straight there to tell her. I didn't want anyone else to have to. Her reaction was exactly as I had expected. It's hard to see your Mother with her heart totally broken.......

I'm not sure a day has passed that she hasn't thought about him.

Cody I know you can read this, and I want to thank you for the legacy you left. I want to thank you for the respect you showed my Mother. You were, and always will be special to her, and she will be proud of you till the day she dies. I also did, and always will, count you my brother.

I'll close with this, because this is the first thing that came to my mind on May 31st, 2013. And nobody has ever lived this more than you did my friend.......

"Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends." -John 15:13

Last year at deer camp we were sitting around the fire and just talking and as the night went on. My brother stood up and proceeded to show us all the constellations in the sky. Now he has the best view of each of them and he is with the Creator of the stars . You will be missed at camp this year brother.

I will never forget the day that my brother, his kids, me and my kids were having a discussion about if you could be an animal what would it be. My brother says; “I would be a water bear”, needless to say the kids looked at him and replied, “What is a water bear?” Cody with that big smile said, it is a small micro animal that can with stand some of the most worst conditions and still survive, yep I would want to be a water bear. The kids looked confused and said okay. I know that they all went and researched that animal on the internet and just the look on their faces were that of pure confusion. The smile on my brother’s face was priceless. So if you don’t know what a water bear is make sure you look it up.