A LESSON FROM MIKE                Listen to Sample!

Theme: Loving the Lonely
Episode Number: 412
Writer: Marshal Younger
Scripture: 1 John 4:7-12
Album: # 31: Days to Remember
Last Air Date: 03/20/2005
Original Air Date: 10/24/98
Summary:

On a typical day in the hallways of Odyssey Middle School, Heather tells her friend Julie that Mike Fulton, a kid in the grade below them, died the day before. He fell off the train trestle at Miller’s Ravine. Julie is aghast, but realizes that she didn’t really know Mike. The girls talk to Whit the next day at Whit’s End and Whit mentions how quiet Mike was.

In a box of keepsakes, Julie finds a letter written to her by Mike in the third grade. She starts to find how much they had in common as she asks his teachers about him and then stops by to visit his mother. They both even liked jazz music! Julie begins to wonder if Mike wouldn’t have died if he had more friends…or even just one friend.

Heather is worried about Julie because she seems to be missing out on her "real life" to learn about someone who is dead. Julie goes to Mike’s funeral with Whit and Mike’s mother. They talk about how Mike loved the same things that Julie loved at Camp What-A-Nut and Mike’s mother mentions how she wishes that Mike could have gotten to know Julie better.

Finally, on the next day at school, Julie sits in Mike’s lonely spot at the cafeteria. Heather comes over to talk to her, apologizing for the way she was acting and the two of them see another girl sitting all by herself. Julie invites the girl to sit with them.