Everybody Needs a Jackie...

I have this friend. Her name is Jackie. Jackie is one of the sweetest, kindest, most sincere girls you will ever meet in your life. She's the type that will drop everything for you if you need her. If I have a problem and need someone to talk to, I always know I can call Jackie. Everyone loves her. And everyone needs her.

Two weeks ago my friend Tamra and I were waiting after church to talk to Jackie. She was busy talking to someone else so we patiently waited our turn. As we were waiting, however, more people kept coming up to talk to her. One right after the other. We kept waiting, more people kept coming. Eventually one of us (I can't remember who) made the comment that everybody needs Jackie. Somehow that evolved into this crazy idea that we should put that phrase onto a t-shirt and give it to her. So while we continued to wait for our chance to talk to her, our brains began coming up with this very brilliant plan.

Tamra and I met together the next Friday, drove over to a store called Embroid Me and put in an order for three t-shirts with the phrase "Everybody Needs a Jackie". Tamra picked them up last night and we took a trip to Jackie's for the big surprise.


She was so surprised when she opened that shirt and read the words! She just kept saying "Where did you find this?" We told her the story of where the phrase came from and told her we had the shirt specially made. She loved it!!


But the surprise didn't end there! We had been sitting there chatting with her for over an hour about life in general before we surprised her with the shirt. And all the while Tamra and I were sitting there with our jackets zipped up to our chins sweating to death (it really isn't jacket weather right now for those of you who aren't familiar with Utah climate). Jackie never even wondered why we had jackets, but if she had our excuse was to be "it's raining outside". After we gave her the shirt we told her we had another surprise. Then we unzipped our jackets, threw them open and yelled "We have shirts too!"


It was such a perfect moment! We couldn't have planned it better if we tried! We were all laughing so hard! Jackie told us that this is a moment she will NEVER forget! I am so glad. She totally deserved to have this moment.

Jackie leaves on Friday for the rest of June. I will definitely miss her while she is gone and I'm not exactly sure what I will do with myself until she comes back. I guess it's a good thing I have another friend ready to step in and be "the new Jackie" for the month. Perhaps I should have a t-shirt made up for her!