Another Wave...

I have told you of several really weird and unexplainable things that happened early on like the incident with the pendulum on the clock, Siri asking if I wanted to ask her: "Where is Brian?" etc. All of that happened early on and there has been nothing odd or unexplainable since.

However, until a couple of months ago when another weird thing happened.  My phone battery had depleted while I was in the car without my charger and the phone went completely dead.  I had to wait till I got home to plug it in and let it charge a while before it would even boot up.  When it finally did and I picked it up to use it there was an email on the screen as if it had just come in.  I opened the email and it was from --Brian; from five years ago --on his birthday!  It said:

"He's saying: "Here comes another one." He's talking about a wave."

Well this didn't make sense out of context so I had to go back through five years and thousands of emails to find and read the email string that lead up to this to see that he is referring to a video he sent me of Paxton at the beach.  I'd sent him one saying that I couldn't understand what the baby was saying in the video and this email was his answer to that.  But it was just those words:

"He's saying: "Here comes another one." He's talking about a wave."

Well I have referred as have many others to grief coming in waves and I have also referred to this being like a shipwreck with me being overcome by the waves so this was unnerving to say the least.  Here comes another one?  Oh God, I hope and pray not --but let me tell you, it totally rattled me.  I tried to blow it off and try and get on with my day but the weirdness of the fact that out of literally thousands of emails that sit on my email account - an email from five years ago, from my son that died five months after that, on what turned out to be his very last birthday shows up on my phone screen as if it were brand new and unread - was strange enough but "this" being the actual message of that email?  Beyond weird.

Well I finally settled down about it and chalked it up to a freaky weird coincidence when two days later it happened again.  Same deal.  Email shows up on my phone screen like a brand new email.  I open it.  It is from Brian.  Same exact email now a second time.  The following week I get an error message on my screen that said:  "your text could not go through."  Well...I had not sent a text.  I opened the error message and it lead me to the actual text it was referring to... and it was the last text I ever sent to Kara; asking "Are you okay?"  She was not.  I had been texting both of them alternately all morning with no answer and that was my last text to her before I sent someone to the house to check on them.

But again "this" a few months shy of five years ago! And believe it or not - that too, actually happened a second time a week later.  And this past Monday - I got the email from Brian now a third time!  This has never happened with any other emails as long as I have had a smartphone. Never.  And now out of thousands of archived emails - this one email has come up on my screen as if it had just been received - three times! And I have also never had an error message come up like that and did not in fact even get that error message the day or days shortly after I sent it.  But I get it twice almost five years later and within days of the emails from Brian???

That is crazy and I really do not know what to make of it.

Mother's Day

Here we are yet another Mother's Day. My fourth since losing Brian.  It seems each year I have fewer and fewer children in my life. Brian was missing Mother's Day 2015.  By 2016 I'd lost my relationship with my oldest son too.  And by 2019 my relationship with my daughter is destroyed as well. So by the fourth Mother's Day after this loss I'd lost all three.  Not the same loss thank God but gone just the same.  So does that even qualify me a mother anymore?

Traumatic death and unresolved grief - the gift that keeps on giving.

It's been quite a year.

I retired after 35 years in commercial insurance and over 50 years of working a public job. And since I retired...

I watched my dear friend for over 55 years succumb to lung cancer while her daughter and I sat by her side in the hospice.

Shortly thereafter, my daughter quit speaking to me.

My sister almost died in December.  She went by ambulance to the hospital with a temperature of 105.  She spent the next two weeks in ICU totally unconscious on total life support.  Her organs began to shut down and her body temperature dropped to 73.
She was dying.

With literally thousands praying for her and a God-sent nursing staff on Christmas Eve she awoke from a coma and after two more weeks in the hospital she was released to a slow and arduous recovery that is still in process six months later.

The night after they had called all the family in not expecting her to live - my son calls me in a rant. He doesn't ask about my sister shows no sympathy and no concern but cusses me out and hasn't spoken to me since.

I spent a day in the ER --my second time ever in 65 years.

It took me four years to try and recover from the hurt and betrayal and attempt to reclaim the lost relationship with my best friend of 42 years...and one conversation for her to tear it down again.

After almost five years.  I finally have an appointment "this week" to see a counselor and I have finally given in two months ago to antidepressants.  I fought it for four and a half years but that is a long time to wake up and realize after all that time I was no better.  I still had no will to live and no interest in life. The depression was killing me and I was killing every relationship I ever had.  I was not sleeping.  I was eating myself to death and my blood pressure was out of control.

That said, things were not all bad.

The antidepressants have been a God-send.  I wish I had allowed myself to get help long ago.

Though I still lost my friend, because I had retired three weeks earlier I was able to go and be with her and her daughter when she died.  She did not die alone.  She was in a wonderful compassionate place with the two people she would have chosen to be with her.

Though my sister almost died - she didn't.  She shocked the doctors and the nurses and  against all odds came out of it and with apparently no damage to her vital organs which they did not believe possible.  She is now not only walking again but driving now.  Thank God for the miracle we witnessed with her.  I know she was a testimony to the power of prayer and the grace of God to a lot of the staff at the hospital too.

The antidepressants have helped me.  And I am finally getting sleep and by pure "accident" due to a recall of my BP Medicine I was put on an alternate that after 20 years finally has my BP under control and totally normal.

And though I don't have my other two children and nothing can replace them, my church family and my extended family and old friends and new have come along side me to pick up the slack and keep me from going this alone.

God is good after all.

Too many coincidences

I understand that I am a mother and that it is natural that I would want someone to blame for this.  But I assure you that I had more than one reason to feel there should have been a more thorough investigation.


Though I knew my son and I knew on day one that this was absolutely not possible as the months went by I had more and more reason to question the conclusion of the investigation.


As mentioned before the police entered through the only ground floor window that lead to a finished room in the basement.  The window was actually open though it appeared locked. It was just pulled down to appear that it was secured just as someone might do that was exiting the home and wanted everything to appear normal and secured.  Both doors securely locked and dead-bolted and yet the one and only ground floor window - virtually open?  The window hidden from view behind large shrubbery.  That is the same window the police entered the home through and yet the reason they gave us for saying Brian was the shooter?  No sign of forced entry...


It took me ten months to get the police report.  I was denied access to it on multiple occasions though it is my right by Georgia law.  The report however, showed very little.  They charged me nine dollars for 30 pages of what appeared to be about five copies of a few identical pages and on each almost all text was redacted - crossed through in bold black marker.  August 24, 2014, when the police left the home after their investigation a short list of what was taken from the scene was left on the coffee table in their home.  My son in law brought it to me when he retrieved their computers and cell phones from the house. The item on that list that jumped out at me was: two spent shell casings from a 9mm gun.  Two.  Three people shot but only two shell casings recovered.  That is a very loose end.


Days later the house was professionally cleaned by Serve-Pro and everything gone over with a fine toothed comb.  No third shell casing was ever found.  There was no carpet in the entire house only hard floors so nothing was going to be lost or camouflaged in carpet and still no third spent shell casing was ever found and I know this because I called the supervisor in charge at Serve-Pro and asked.


If no one was alive to leave the house - how did one get missing?  I repeatedly asked that question but never received an answer.  Ten months after the tragedy that took the lives of my children I was finally able to get a copy of the report.  It contained just a tiny bit more information than we already knew but the main piece of information it contained was that the missing shell casing was noted on that report and it was the shell casing to the bullet that killed Brian...


Not quite three months after my children died my 82 year old neighbor also a long time resident of Paulding County had a heart attack in his driveway.  As he fell he hit his head against the bumper of his truck and his poor wife found him when she returned from a ministry meeting later that morning.  When the police and emergency crew arrived the police on the scene actually asked her if she thought he had any reason to have harmed himself.  Suicide? By throwing himself down on the bumper of his truck?  His wife was livid.


Four months after my children were killed - in a county that covers 315 square miles and has a population of 142,763 an 18 year old boy was found shot to death in his car one mile from my son's home. A week later a twelve-year veteran of the sheriff's department and veteran of the military was found shot to death also apparently in the middle of the night along with his wife and twelve year old daughter and 21 year old son - also deemed murder/suicide.  This happened about eight miles from my son's home.  Three different instances of murder less than 10 miles apart, all within a four month period.  Just a coincidence or could it be that there is perhaps just a murderer on the loose in that area. 


Another common denominator - Young adult males all around the same age, all in the same geographical area, all could have known some of the same people.


About six weeks after the kids died I hear of an incident told to my daughter in law's mother.  I knew Kara was the one that insisted on buying a gun for protection but I had never known why.  She says she feared for their safety after an acquaintance of Brian's teenage son came to the door demanding that he send his son out.  The boy was angry and cussing and threatening the son. She said, Kara was terrified and called the police to come immediately. At that time Brian, 38 years old had never owned or fired a gun in his entire life.  He kept only a baseball bat as protection.  He grabbed the baseball bat as the boy tried to push his way in the door to come in after Brian's son.  He did not use it of course but held it to discourage the boy from coming in.  He told the boy that the police were on the way and he had better leave.  The boy turned to leave and as he got almost to his car he turned and screamed back at him "This is NOT over!  I will come back here and kill you and your whole damned family!"


They went right out and bought two guns and went to the local firing range to learn to shoot them. According to the police Brian sold his the year before.  Kara carried hers in her car.


They moved into the new house shortly thereafter and three years later on August 23 in the middle of the night Brian and his whole family are killed...


Two years prior to this Brian's 16-year old daughter ran away from home and was staying at her boyfriend's house.  Brian found out where she was and called the police to come and assist in getting his daughter out of the house and home.  They did.  At that time, the policemen on the scene warned the boy's mother that she was a minor child and she was interfering with custody and could get in serious trouble for allowing her to stay there.  They told the mother if it happened again - she could be arrested.  Less than a month later it happened again.  A second time Brian called for help to get his daughter home safe and a second time Paulding County came to his rescue.  He did not press charges, nor did he want the woman locked up but since she had been officially warned previously the police arrested the boy's mother.  The boy was furious cussing and screaming threats at Brian "and included his family" that night also.  This I did know about.  Paulding County would have also known about it.


The same day that they were all found dead - that same boy was arrested for the first time ever.  And he has been in and out of jail almost constantly since that day... 


This is on record.


Paulding County helped Brian get an emergency custody hearing before a judge when his son was put out of the car and left on the side of a deserted road at 16 by his mother.


At 14 his daughter also chose to come to live with him.  Paulding County DFACS came to their home on several occasions to do home welfare visits when he and Kara had called them so that he could get temporary custody in order to be able to enroll her in school.


They noted on the incident report from the day they were found that there had never been a call to that home for any sort of domestic violence and Brian had been a resident of Paulding County since he bought his first home there at 21 years old.  The only calls they had ever had were from him concerning the safety and protection of his children. 


He had never laid a hand on any woman ever.  He could hardly even put his children on restriction.  He had never been in any kind of trouble in his life and had nothing more serious than a minor traffic violation in 41 years.


In the officers own words - "The house was immaculate and nothing appeared to be out of place.  It looked as if they had all put on pajamas and just gone to bed."


Just saying that there appears to me to be at least cause for reasonable doubt.

So Many Things...

Still haunt me.  Here we are almost five years later and the ripple effects of this tragedy are still appearing.  The sum total of all of it are still today continuing to destroy my family and likely will as long as we all live.

The split second decision to deem this murder/suicide --made by the investigating officers of The Paulding County Sheriff's Department in the middle of a gruesome and horrific crime scene was decided based solely on the personal opinions of the officers on call that day.  Circumstantial evidence that would never fly under any other circumstances.  Loose ends that were never addressed.  Hard evidence that was ignored.  Forensic evidence that was never collected.  Not one ounce of proof was given to us.  Not one ounce of proof was ever found.  And no one cared.  They were the police.  We argued.  We begged.  We pestered.  To no avail.  They had the only say in it.  It was their job but they chose not to do it.  They assumed it wasn't important. He was dead.  He couldn't dispute it and they didn't have to follow standard protocol.  Brian wasn't important.  We, his family weren't important.  The fallout they left with that decision has ruined to the point of no return, our entire family.  "This" this horrific and unimaginable loss would have been alone, enough to destroy us but that along with this horrific, biased and blatant injustice - has pretty much finished us off.

I have given them the benefit of the doubt which is far beyond what they ever gave Brian.  I can imagine the horror that they all walked into that day.  I know it was awful.  It was mind-boggling.  It was devastating.  It was a scene that would have caused many of them nightmares for years to come. And I can absolutely understand how they could have come to that opinion early on.  Forty one year old man, beautiful, younger woman, two year old child all shot to death and the only one that was not in his bed was Brian.  I am not blind.  I can certainly see that the devastating scene would be enough to make you angry and make you want to jump to the obvious conclusion; call it like you see it and get out of there as quickly as possible.  I get it.  I do.

What I have a problem with is the fact that had he been alive, standing there holding the smoking gun things would have been far different.  He would have been read rights - because he would have rights.  He would have had the right to an attorney to defend him. He would have been allowed a trial by jury.  He would have had the chance to enter a plea and tell his side of the story.   They would have done a complete and thorough investigation albeit in the attempt to prove his guilt not his innocence.  But my point is they would have had to prove it; something they didn't feel necessary since he was also dead and couldn't defend himself.  They would have held interviews to get to know him and what he was like. They would have talked people on his job, long time friends, neighbors close by, they would have interviewed his family and come to know him through the people that knew him.

Had he been alive to deny it regardless of what they saw when they arrived - they would have had to follow up on the open ground floor window and check for shoe prints, finger prints, evidence of tampering with the lock.  They would have searched for any and all of the physical evidence on the scene, carefully logged it and sent it to the state crime lab for analysis.  They would have dusted for fingerprints. They would have checked his and her computers, phone records, email trails, text messages they would have searched extensively for hard evidence of a motive.  They would have made certain they had all of the spent shell casings and done a ballistics test on the gun and those shell casings.  Perhaps they would have had an expert to analyze the blood spatter, a forensic expert to check the gun powder residue or the blood on his clothes to see if it matched the victims blood.  Had they found drugs in the home - he would have had a toxicology test immediately and all drugs would have been carefully logged and become evidence in the case.

These are only fair.  These alone are the puzzle pieces that create the picture.  These are the protocol of our justice system.  If they were going to accuse him of a crime as serious as murder - they would have to have hard evidence --even if they walk in and find a suspect standing over the body and holding the gun.  It may be their educated opinion that he did it but that would not hold up in court.  While our justice system is not foolproof and it is certainly not perfect, in the vast majority of cases, it is fair and it works.  All I ever asked for; all I ever expected --was just the same investigation they would have given anyone - basically that they just do their jobs and not let our lives be totally destroyed based on their clearly and maybe even justifiably, biased opinions.

I am now and have always been aware of the fact that this - none of this - would ever make sense.  I understood fully that I may never know the why behind any of this and that I would likely never find "closure".  But I never asked the Sheriff's office to guarantee me "closure".   I only wanted Brian to have a fair trial even if their evidence had shown the exact same outcome.  No, it would not have brought them back, it would not have made losing my children any easier, it would not have brought me or my family a happy ending.  And I never thought it could. But it would have given us the truth to the best of their abilities.  Truth we could see.  Truth that would have provided some proof to us.  It would have given me the ability to sleep at night knowing I had done all I could in my power to see to it that he was given the benefit of the doubt in a fair and complete investigation.  I may have not spent the last four and a half years angry as I personally obsessed over all of the evidence that pointed to someone else being in that house that night.  Perhaps I would not have been constantly running everyone he ever knew past a "perk" test for motives and to see who fit the criteria and who did not; placing them all on my personal list of suspects, turning it over and over in my mind and grieving over all of the evidence that was right there and could have helped in a fair determination but knowing that it can now never prove or disprove anything because it was destroyed without ever having been considered.  I could have perhaps by now been able to find peace, sleep at night, enjoy holidays again, have hope and find the will to live.  Perhaps I would still have the security I once had in law enforcement and believe again in our justice system.  Perhaps my entire family would not have been totally destroyed by the lingering anger over the unfairness and injustice that plagues every one of us now and regrets we will all live with forever.

Had he lived and they needed to actually prove his guilt - things would have been very, very different and that is not right. When the truth was never pursued it was an insult and an injustice to all of them. Because he was not living he did not matter.  And because we were related to him, we did not matter so none of us were allowed to question or dispute their personal opinion. And because of that the memory and legacy of the best father I ever knew, along with the rest of our entire family was destroyed.  Of the irreparable damage that was inflicted on us August 24th 2014 only part of it was caused by the loss and our loss was multiplied ten times by the injustice caused by The County Sheriff's Department that day-- The very ones hired to "Protect and Serve".

If it could happen to anyone it could happen to everyone. 

The Train

I had a revelation last night.  A revelation about a dream that I dreamed over 50 years ago.  One might wonder how you could or would still think about or recall a dream you had 50 years ago.  But that was one I will never forget.  It was a scary, terrifying recurring dream that I had for months.  Some might say it felt like a premonition.  I did.  So the dream tormented me for years wondering what the dream was trying to warn me of.  Months and months I was afraid of falling asleep afraid I'd have the dream again.  It was clear that it had an evil connotation to it.  Problem was I did not know of what.

I dreamed I was way off somewhere walking down an old dirt road that ran alongside a railroad track.  Suddenly the road disappeared and there was only track and the track at this point started over a long train trestle that crossed over a wide rocky river below.  I surveyed the bridge and knew that I needed to be on the other side.  No train in sight I set out across the trestle ever conscious of the raging white water below.  About the time that I had reached the halfway point of the trestle I heard it.  The low long whistle of a train.  I look behind me and quickly calculate that either way will take me longer to reach than the time it will take the train to reach me.  I look up and see the single huge round engine light off in the distance flashing between the trees as it barrels toward me at an alarming speed.

I look down at my only other option.  It is not a good one.  Big wide river, swift water rushing loudly over an endless sea of huge rocks.

I look up the train is closing in fast.  I know running back is useless it will over take me long before I reach the end of the trestle.  Down - white water, rock and certain death awaits.  These are my choices.  I can feel my hands are clammy.  My breath coming now in shallow spurts.  I am shaking, panting, terrified and I do not know what to choose and truthfully it doesn't matter.  Both choices result in the same outcome but I stand there frozen and I can't choose.  I realize that "not choosing" is choosing but I can't move.  I hear the steel of the train's wheels strain and squeal with a loud screeching noise as the engine reaches the trestle.  I am running.

Suddenly I'm awake.

Thank God.  Sweating.  Heart racing.  Shaking uncontrollably.  It was just a dream.

But it was not just a dream.  It was such a terrifying dream that I did not want to go back to sleep for fear of being taken back there again.

I was disturbed over the dream for days and days.  And just as I began to let go of it and feel I could rest again.  I had the dream again.  Exactly like before.  Again I woke up just in time.  Again I was seriously disturbed for days.  Weeks.  And this continued on for months.

Last night for the first time I realized that I now know the choice I made.

Four years ago I had that choice before me in reality.  I wanted to choose to jump into the rolling waters and not face the blunt force of the train but I stood frozen and so the full force of the 100-car freight train plowed through my life...

Some days...

Today is one of those days when just walking by my computer sets the tone for my day.  The screensaver picture is one I took of Paxton up at our barn sitting on a log.  They are all precious.

I would sometimes just follow him around with the camera and let him be "him"; running, playing, climbing, throwing leaves up in the air --whatever he found to do while I snapped away.  The hundreds and hundreds of pictures of him that I took in the few short years that we had him can attest to that.  I've never done that.  I realize now what a gift that was that I did as they now are all I have.

Some days it is still so hard; so painful and so raw.  Other days - I'm visibly better.   Some days these memories are treasures that make me smile and I could just sit and flip through hundreds of them at a sitting.  Today, they are treasures that do just the opposite.  I want to turn away quickly because they hurt with a fresh, deep, agonizing, physically painful hurt.  Just walking by them made me burst into tears. 

Best to do on days like this? Focus on helping others.  It helps me.  It helps "me" way more than it helps them. I find I desperately need to stay busy and keep my mind occupied and off of the sadness which at any given moment without warning can totally ambush me and sidetrack my entire day.  And I still need my time to cry but at least most of the time I am able to control when and where I cry --so that is an improvement.

I am so glad I naively did not realize I could still be "here" over four years later.  In many ways, as impossible as it seems, it is actually worse.  I do wonder when it will stop getting worse.  That news alone would have been more than I could have overcome in the beginning.  

One day at a time.  One step at a time.  One ambush at a time.

Today is not a good day but tomorrow will be better.

What helps...

I've read somewhere in the neighborhood of 100 grief-related books in the past four years - and what I have been able to glean from them that has most helped me --is the advice to help others that are grieving. 

The bible says you have been given this experience and you should not waste your pain. But to pass on what you have learned and provide the type of help that has been provided for you.

Very few understand a grieving person's pain and way too many walk away because they don't know what to say or do. 

So you go.  You help.  You just be there.  You can relate better and you have tools you can share. 

Here are a few things you can do:

1.  Be there to walk alongside them.  
2.  Give them your hard-earned sage advice. Tell them what has helped you.  Then help them get started.  
3.  Send them cards. Call them. Text them.  Email them.  Just don't ignore them.
4.  Give them the books that have helped you most.  Help cut through the mountain of crap out there and give them the ones you've found that are worth reading.
5.  Go walk with them.  It gets them out of the house, out of the closet or out of the bed.  It is exercise, it gets the blood pumping, it lessens depression, increases energy gets muscles being used, takes in fresh air, sunshine and is passive company.
6.  Listen to them, cry with them, let them talk about their loved one.
7.  Ask about their loved one.  Call their name.  Say something nice about them or bring up a memory if you have one.
8. Send them comfort - hot chocolate, tea, their favorite cookies, bath salts, warm slippers, good chocolate, a scented candle or a throw.  Give them something to help them care for themselves.
9. Make or buy them comfort foods.
10. Eat with them.
11. Take them to lunch or dinner.
12. Send them flowers several months later.
13. Watch a movie with them.
14. Help them start Journaling.
15. Help them with a scrapbook, or collage of photos
16. Go with them to the cemetery to place flowers.

These help.  I promise.  And all of these have been done for me and I have now done most for someone else.  And it helps.  It helps ME as much, if not more, than it does them.