Scrapbook

My scrapbook.

I had a scrapbook I kept photos of you. Unfortunately, you weren't in a lot of the magazines I read as a child, so I relied on my grandma's magazines. She read some of the tabloid magazines, like Star.

I remember when we would go to her house, she'd have magazines for my mom, and she would pull me aside and tell me, "your Michael is in this one" or "your Michael is in the new one, you can look, but you can't take it yet". And I would dive onto her couch and page through looking for your face.

I added to it for years. I must have paged through it a million times. I didn't do too much reading of the articles, I knew what the media was saying and I didn't believe it. Grandma told me, too, that it was nonsense. I honestly don't know why she even read them.

But to this day, I have that scrapbook. My son loved it when he was little too. He dressed as you for a solid year, I think. Little fedora and jacket. Cutie pie.

That scrapbook got me through a lot of really bad days. You were my beacon of strength. You showed me to keep going, not to listen to people.

You saved my life countless times.

You mean the world to me.