"Sweet...um...Everyone Else!"

Year: 1996
Place: Raymond
My age: 18

I moved in with my Aunt Joyce and her kids (Jake, Becca, and Noah) in late August of 1995. About two months later, she married her second husband, Duane Oler. Duane had five kids: Julie, Dan, Neil, Andrew, and Caroline. Neil has already made prominent appearances on the blog, and I'm pretty sure I've mentioned Andrew in at least one. Anyway, Julie was married and living in the States when I met the Olers (not to be confused with the Olers on my mother's side of the family), and the rest of the kids lived with their mother in Stirling. The four Olers would come to stay with us every weekend or so. Dan was a year or two older than Jake and me, Neil was Becca's age, and Andrew was Noah's age. And then there was Caroline. She was a quiet, unassuming 12-year-old girl with whom I never engaged in conversation. I mean, come on, it's not because I was jerk. She was quiet and 12; I was quiet and 18. What were we going to say to each other?

In a short time, we all forged attachments to our own particular Olers. Jake, who was always developing man-crushes on slightly older men, connected with Dan. Noah and I really connected with Neil, and we started a long tradition of going to Burger King--just the three of us--after midnight that still carries on today on the rare occasions that all three of us are in Lethbridge. Noah, Becca, and I also connected with Andrew, one of the most lovable and wholesome people I've ever met. Caroline, being significantly younger than us, didn't really connect until later years. In fact, when she was 18 and I was 24, I temporarily moved in with Joyce again, and we became great friends. But back in '96, I didn't pay much attention to her.

Case in point: One day in the late spring of 1996, I was asked to say a family prayer just before the Olers returned home to Stirling. I've always been bad with names. Sometimes they just slip away from me and I can't grab them. This is how part of my prayer went: "Please bless Dan, Neil, Andrew, and...um...everyone else that they'll return home safely." Her name just completely slipped my mind during the prayer, and there was nothing I could do except for the "everyone else" cop-out. I finished my prayer quickly as my cousins snickered, and then full-out laughed at me after saying "amen." "Caroline!" I declared amid the laughter. Her name returned to me exactly when it was too late to matter.

A couple years later, Noah was talking to Caroline, and my name came up. She had no clue who I was. So we're even.