Nadiya Mackenzie Butler

Her brother instantly fell in love with her, and she fell in love with him. They became inseparable best friends from day one. She held special bonds with so many people. Each one different. The bond between Nadiya and her brother is one for the record books though. They had the biggest love hate relationship like most siblings do. Love always wins though. You rarely saw one and not the other. The stories that he can tell and the secrets he keeps are tremendous in number. I can also tell you chances are if you told Nadiya a secret, her brother knows it. She would never tell anyone else but him. He was her sounding board and her lifetime best friend. They were born thirteen months apart. So, they were more like twins with each other. She was her brother’s keeper, and he was her protecter.

She was the only granddaughter on both sides of our families. She was also the only niece to her three uncles and aunt. She used that for everything she could. She had them all wrapped. All her uncles, her only aunt, and grandparents can attest to it. Each having their own stories they could tell from buying a golf cart just because she asked, to buying tons of cookie dough nobody was going to eat because she wanted to ride in the limo at school, getting their nails done together because she wanted to get her nails done, going Christmas shopping so she could get a sneak peek at her presents, making gingerbread houses late at night while eating all the candy to make the house, to keeping count of everything done for her brother so the next year she can make sure to remind them about it, and making brownies in the middle of the night only to stay up and eat every crumb. The stories and special moments are endless. Just as some of you have your own stories and special moments to tell as well.

Nadiya had so many nicknames from different people that it is impossible to narrow down and pick just one. She answered to Nadiya, Doodlebug, Naya, Natalie (the preacher never got her name right), NayNay, Naughty (when the older generation tried to say her name), Tater tot, Sis, Sissy, and I’m sure I am missing some. That just shows you how special she was to each every person in her life.

Nadiya was a free-spirited carefree child. She was full of life and always had a smile on her face for anyone she met. She got that from, in her words, her “Deddy”. I can’t say that without also saying she was sassy, stubborn, and when she was hungry or sleepy, she was the grumpiest person you could ever meet. You didn’t want to be on her bad side either. She had a temper that would stand toe to toe with the best of them. She got that from me. In her words her “birth giver” or “the lady that fed her”. Very few people got to see her soft tender side but take my word for it... she was tenderhearted. In her brother’s words, “she was the most loving, caring person, and the best friend that you could ever ask for”. If you had the pleasure of getting to know her, you know how amazing she was. What you may not know was, In the beginning of this I said her full name. I could immediately hear her telling me not to say her full name because it hurt her feelings as her voice cracked and her bottom lip quivered. Which always made us all giggle. She had a flare for the dramatics that is for sure.

If Nadiya loved you, she loved you with everything she had and then some. That isn’t saying she wouldn’t fuss, complain, or talk about you. Most of the time to your face but I can assure you there was probably some behind the back talk too. She was a female and a teenager. That’s what we do. I can name a handful of people that I never heard anything bad come out of her mouth about. I can assure you I am not in that handful. You knew exactly where you stood with her. She would have your back if you were right. If you were wrong, she was going to tell you whether it was what you wanted to hear or not. If she didn’t like you the world was going to know that too. She stood up for the weak and helped anyone in need the best she could. I say all that, but I also have to say if you hurt someone she loved or cared deeply about she was going to bring that mouth of hers and wouldn’t back down. She paid no attention to the fact that she was only five feet tall and weighed a hundred and twenty pounds. That never held her back on anything. She forgave people easily. She always understood people made mistakes, even her, and that didn’t wipe away the good in anybody. She had friends that didn’t like other friends, but she didn’t care. She loved them for who they were to her, not everyone else’s opinion of that person.

Her love for children is something that I’ve never seen in a young teenager and continued as she aged. She never minded cancelling plans to babysit. There were times she couldn’t babysit, if it was Homecoming and there was a dance, or she wanted to go eat with a friend. Very few times did that happen though. On those rare occasions, she always made sure there was a backup for the parents and those children would be taken care of. Most of the time she would drag the kids with her. If they couldn’t go, she wasn’t going. Especially River James. You couldn’t tell her anything with that kid. That was her baby where she was concerned. Even with his daddy. She didn’t care. He was always there, and we were always buying him something she thought he just had to have. Of course, I can’t put all the blame on her, we are just as guilty with always buying for him. She wrote an essay for school a little while ago. They had to pick a day in their life that they would never forget. She kept asking me what to write about and I finally told her it was her special day. Only she could answer the question of what to write about. She never told me what she decided on and I never thought to ask. I was just glad she finally wrote it and had stopped asking me what to write about. Of course, her closest best friend Brianna, or in her words “Booboo”, always helped her write her essays, sometimes even writing them for her. She always thought I didn’t know that. Like I said she had a way of talking anyone into anything. I feel like she wrote this one entirely on her own since I found the file about her special day saved on my computer. Her special day was the day she was asked to keep River. That’s how special he was to her. She never got to experience having a child of her own but to her, in her heart, she was River’s mama from that day forward. In her words he was her “little broke best friend”.

Nadiya loved her t-shirts, jeans, gym shorts, leggings, boots, air forces, and her truck hats. However, don’t let that fool you. She could rock a dress with heels, lipstick and lashes any day of the week. She loved animals, trucks, motorcycles, fast cars, and any type of ATV. She was country to her core. She loved to deer hunt and fish. When I tell you she could out hunt and fish any of you standing out here you better believe it. She never not once missed a deer she shot at. She always laid them down. We never had to search for her deer. She would drop them every time. Fishing is something she was great at too. She would fish for hours and never complain if she caught something or not. She always ended up catching the biggest fish and the most fish before the day was over with. Let her find out Nathan had gone fishing with her rod and reel without her. That mouth would start. You were about to hear that for hours on end. No matter what you said she would say “Well…” and here she would go again. She didn’t play about her hunting and fishing. Several of you have gone fishing with her so you already know.

Nadiya was working on a truck with her Deddy when she had her accident. Instead of leaving it incomplete he finished the truck for her and named it after her. Of course, he had help from so many people to accomplish their dream. He did an amazing job. She would be so very proud of him as she always was. I know she is riding shotgun with her feet on the dash, against her Deddy’s orders, and jamming out. Probably even telling him to spin a tire or go faster. She did not get that from me.

Nadiya had plans for her future that she never got to fulfill. Her seventeenth birthday was the day she was going to make the biggest decision of her life and join the National Guard. Following her uncle’s footsteps. He was the first person she reached out to when she made the decision seven months before her accident. She made that decision on her own without even a conversation with anyone else. As I said she was a girl who knew what she wanted. She was, however, undecided on the direction she wanted to go. She didn’t know if she wanted to follow in her Deddy’s footsteps in life or mine. Whether she wanted to choose the mechanical side of life or take a walk into the healthcare world. Ultimately, we all know it would have been her Deddy’s footsteps. She was a Deddy’s girl completely. What he ate she ate. What he didn’t eat she didn’t eat for the most part. If mama said it… it was questioned. If Deddy said it… it was facts. Story book father daughter relationship. Not to say we didn’t have a mother daughter bond. She was my daughter, but she was also my best friend in so many ways. She was our shotgun riding partner. If you were going to town, she was going to in the passenger seat with her feet on the dash. You were going to listen to what she wanted to listen to whether you wanted to or not. Some of her music I think she truly only liked them because some of the words made me cringe. Now I listen to each of them with a smile and a tear along with a giggle because she finally got me to jam out to those cringe worthy songs.

Nadiya always left me letters and notes around the house and my work. Some were for holidays and some just because. I still randomly find her letters that I had forgotten about. She wrote in one that she “believed in angels, miracles, good luck, superheroes, and destiny”. She was all those things and never knew it. She once said I gave up my dreams for her. Truth is she was my dream. Her and her brother both, since I was a child. She would say she didn’t know what she would do without me, but she knew there was nothing she couldn’t do with me and her Deddy by her side. She always thought she needed us. She didn’t. She was so hardheaded and strong willed. We needed her way more. She wrote in another; we gave her strength and no matter what we went through she would always love us. I know that to be true.

On June 5, 2022, Nadiya rolled a four-wheeler over and became trapped under it. She was airlifted to UMMC where she remained for six long days. She fought with everything she had in her to stay with us. June 11, 2022, her body had been through enough and could no longer go on any further. She is loved tremendously and missed more than words can ever say. On June 15, 2022, we laid her body to rest. She left behind a legacy of compassion, forgiveness, and never-ending love. Nadiya lives on within us all.