I've been thinking...

And I'd like to know what you think.

And I've been reading again and for anyone going through a faith crisis this is the best resource I have found that addresses grief, loss, tragedy - as they relate to your faith. Lifelines for Tough Times by Mike Fabarez.

In the book it says that good comes from these tragedies although not always like you might expect; that sometimes other people's lives are positively affected or changed in some way.

So with that in mind, what I am wondering is could this tragedy have brought some to know God; or brought someone closer to God? Could it have given some a clearer appreciation of the life they have; or a deeper appreciation for the loved ones they have?   Could it have made some aware of issues in their own family that need addressing?  Could it have lead some to pay attention to what could be warning signs?  Could it have made someone change the way they relate to others; comfort others in their grief or judge others? Has this made anyone aware that everything they see on the news might not be true and that every story has another side?  Has it made anyone question their complete trust and faith in local law enforcement?  Has it made anyone in hearing a tragic story on the news now think about the alleged guilty party's family?  Has it made anyone think that this could happen to you?

Has my story, Brian's story or this blog in any way affected you?  If so, I would like to hear your story. Would you please let me know?

A Little Hope... goes a long way

I have prayed for help.  I have prayed for faith to fully return, for trust, for a renewed relationship.  I have hung on hoping for answers, relief, "beauty from the ashes" –something good to be made from this misery; some lessons, some divine revelation –something.   

Nothing...  

Two weeks ago I had an incident that hit me really hard and actually made things worse.  It won't make sense to some, heck, it didn't make sense to me but after a lot of thought I've come to understand it a little better.  And since it was a part of this insanity, I'm going to write about it here. 

At dinner one night on our screened porch a little bird had landed on our feeder.  It is just maybe two feet from the table that we eat most meals at.  As I was watching him he literally flew at us and hit the screen and then began to struggle to fly at all.  I knew something was wrong with the little bird but he managed to fly onto a lower limb in a tree close by so we finished up with dinner and went inside.  The next morning I went out and began to look around for him.  In a few minutes I saw the still struggling little bird had managed to get down the hill from the house into some low-growing juniper and had apparently found refuge in the thick greenery there on the ground.  He caught my eye as he hopped upward fluttering around trying to fly up from the ground and get airborne.  No more than three minutes after I walked out to try and find him he fluttered up and then right back down and right into our lake!  I panicked.  Screaming for my husband to go get a dip net or the little Jon boat and come and get him out.  It hopped up and down in the water but the little wings that already weren’t working too well were now wet and he could only manage a few inches before he fell back into the water.  I stood on the side of the bank calling to him trying to give him some bearings as to where land was; hoping he could limp his way to the bank or that my husband could get the dip net there in time.  The little bird continued to struggle and I found myself praying out loud for God to please not let the little bird die.  Let me be able to save him and not watch him struggle and then die right in front of me.  I just did not think I could take anymore death.  The little bird sat there struggling about five minutes and then he just got still, and quietly rolled under the water. 

I just lost it.

Sobbing hysterically and literally railing at God and my husband and life in general.  I cried on and off for a solid week - over a dead bird.   Later when I’d calmed down while trying to make sense of my crazed reaction to an obviously sick or injured bird, I realized in some ways the little bird represented so much more to me.  The whole episode made me think of what I’d said about the survivor from a shipwreck I described in an earlier post (Shipwrecked).  The little bird did just like I said the survivor would do when all hope was lost – it struggled until it’s will to live depleted and it then just gave up and quietly slipped under the water.  At the time, I wrote that, I completely understood the fight to live as long as you had hope but when you saw your hopes of living through your crisis dashed over and over and though you prayed --help never came.  And death loomed large on the horizon.  At some point, just for the relief you would just quit fighting and quietly let go.  To me, in some crazy way the little bird represented my struggle to make it through this though I continue to hope and pray for relief nothing gets better and I think I loosely equated his fate with mine.

The following week – one week to the day exactly after the little bird drowned, I was driving home from work and a mile from home in the middle of the road sat a little bird.  I assumed it would fly away to safety when I got closer but as I passed I realized I had not seen him move.  When I looked back in the rear view mirror, the little bird though only a foot away as my car went past at about 30 MPH  - just sat there. 

He was almost on the yellow line right in the middle of the road.  I stopped the car and put it in reverse, backed up expecting to find the little bird actually dead or broken but there it sat --huddled down and looking terrified but alive.  I got out of the car and reached for the little bird.  It sat there still while I picked it up but as soon as I did he lowered his head and closed his eyes.  I drove the rest of the way home holding the tiny injured bird in one hand figuring he wouldn’t live fifteen minutes but after the prior week --I just had to try.  I came home and fixed him a little box with some tree limbs and leaves in it; warmed a hand towel in the dryer and made a little “nest” and sat the little bird in the center surrounded by the warmth of the towel.  Immediately he opened his eyes and started looking around.  I put him on my screened porch where all the birds outside were feeding, chirping, flying around just on the other side of the screen and left him while I went to change clothes and start dinner.  About twenty minutes later I went out to check on the little bird half expecting him to have died but instead I couldn’t find him.  He wasn’t in the box anywhere.  I looked around and there he sat on the ledge of the porch three feet above the box!  I went to pick him up and he flew to the other side of the porch where his feet got stuck in the screen.  I walked over and carefully unhung his nails from the screen and set him outside on the deck rail and to my delight he promptly flew away!

What does it all mean?  I'm not completely sure but I do feel that he was another gift. 

Four Weeks and One Year...

Saturday was one year ago since I started the blog with my post Four Weeks.  It has been one heck of a ride since that first post.

When it was mentioned to me that maybe I should start a blog, I had no idea why, since I had never even read a blog.  I had no idea what I would do with it, what I would write or how it could possibly help.  But as I’ve said before I latched onto anything and everything that anyone suggested. I: read everything I could get my hands on, attended Grief Share, called a counselor, contacted Stephen Ministries, tried to pray, took whatever time off from work that was appropriate, went back to work to get back engaged in life, clung to family, wrote in my journal (which I have always done.) Read the bible, listened to preaching and teaching and Christian music.  Anything and everything that I even heard of that might help me survive this with my sanity intact –I tried.  So when starting a blog was suggested and writing had always been my natural outlet and my way to cope –I started a blog.  And while I can’t say that any one thing was most instrumental in my survival the blog has certainly played a huge part.  And yes, there are still days when it is still up in the air whether I will make it all the way through it, but I have managed to survive it one day at a time, one step at a time, one “post” at a time for thirteen months today -- a feat I never believed possible thirteen months ago.

Here I have found peace, faith, friends, comfort and release.  I have been able to write out my feelings, my love, my hurts, my memories, my devastation, my disappointments, my insecurities, my life-lessons and my grief.

I have been able through this to express some of the isolating loneliness of this horror and find solace in the friends and family that I have here because I can say the things on my heart here that I would likely never say in person.   It has helped me to be able to recognize blessings and miracles and gifts as I have written through my day to day survival.  I have found friends that have been my support and I hope and pray that it has been some comfort for others; that perhaps something I may have said or acknowledged may have helped someone else along this grief road or if nothing else – let someone know they were not alone and give them hope in the fact that if I can survive “this” freight train – they too can survive theirs. 

Through writing here I have been able to lay things out in black and white, sort through them and organize them in my mind helping me at times to see things I would have otherwise missed.  I have rediscovered my love for music and found a new love in the hope and healing words of Praise and Worship because of a reader here that had actually been through a similar experience. I have been able to post sweet memories of my baby boy, funny pictures and honor all that he was as I relived my short time with him.  I have been able to honor the memory of my daughter-in-law and express some of what she meant to me and our entire family and I have been free to acknowledge my love for my son, relive the joy that he was to us and recount some of the reasons that I can never believe this horrific conclusion about what happened and I have been free to express my disappointment, my anger and resulting insecurities with the way the Sheriff’s Department handled the "investigation". 

A year ago there was no way I could have imagined all this blog would mean to me.  It has been all of the above and much more.  Thank you for being there with me as I struggled to survive this.

Many, many days, this has been my only safe place to fall.

The Storms of Life

I have been bombarded lately with a common message coming at me from a variety of areas.  I listen to Charles Stanley’s radio message at 5:30 every morning on my ride to work.  I also listen to a local Christian radio station that does a Daily Devotion every morning.  I also have a Bible app that has a Bible verse of the day.  These three different forms of media have all come together with a common message this week. The Storms of Life – their cause and meaning.   There are three types of storms that God allows in your life. 

There are Protecting storms – as in you did not get that job that you were hoping and praying for – you feel at the time that it was a storm or an unanswered prayer but perhaps instead it was because the company was going to close and you would have been left jobless.  Or perhaps you prayed for things to work out in a relationship with a certain person but that did not happen and you are disappointed but you later meet the love of your life.  Your seemingly unanswered prayer was actually a form of God’s protection.  I’m sure if you think back you can recall a time when you have asked God for something only to find out later that you were thankful He did not allow you to have whatever you had asked for.

Then there are Correcting storms – storms that hit your life as a direct result of some sin or some wrong choice that you have made.  God is not trying to destroy you with these storms of correction but instead guide you to the best choices for your life for your own benefit. - Proverbs 3:11 My son, despise not the chastening of the Lord, neither be weary of his correction for who the Lord loveth, he correcteth even as a father the son in whom he delighteth.  Ask yourself this about whatever you are going through – Is this a storm of correction?  Is there something in my life that needs correcting.  Is this a disciplinary storm that God has allowed in my life to open my eyes to something I am doing that is out of His will or is pushing me farther away from my walk with Him?  His purpose is to move us constantly in the direction of a closer walk with Him. Our goal should be to be more Christ-like.  Is there something in your life; gossip, lust, envy, an addiction or an error in thinking that may be blocking that goal?  If so, He will do whatever it takes to get your attention and get you back on the right track.  That is a correcting storm.

And then there are Perfecting storms – A storm that has come into your life as a test to refine you like gold in a fire to remove the impurities in your life or like in Luke 22:31-32 where Jesus tells the Apostle Peter “Simon, Simon, Satan has asked to sift you as wheat. But I have prayed for you, Simon that your faith may not fail.  And when you have turned back, strengthen your brothers.”  This was an Apostle of Jesus Christ who had listened to his teachings and left his personal life to walk with Jesus for three years.  But Simon Peter had such a love and loyalty to Jesus he began to be arrogant about it.  In the next verse 33: Peter says, “Lord, I am ready to go with thee, both into prison, and to death.”  In Matthew 26: 33:  “Though all men shall be offended because of thee yet will I never be offended.”  And in verse 35 he goes on to say “I should die with thee yet will I not deny thee.”  But when Jesus asked him to come to the garden with Him and watch and pray – he fell asleep.  And when the guards came and arrested Jesus Peter in fear for his own life, denied even knowing Jesus three different times.  So though Peter loved the Lord, he was arrogant and prideful about that love and his faith.  He was not nearly as strong as he had thought.  So Jesus agreed to let Satan “sift” him as wheat – to test and try his faith not so Jesus would know the depth of that faith for He already knew but so that Peter could see his own shortcomings.  So he could no longer hide from his failures as a loyal friend and follower of Jesus.  I’m sure this was an eye opening experience for Peter.  I’m sure he was filled with confusion, remorse and shame.  But it gave him an honest assessment of how his strength, bravery, loyalty and faith was tested and found lacking. God knew that Peter’s pride was going to have to be destroyed if he were ever going to be of any real use.  Peter suffered a Perfecting storm.

And yet again this morning still another confirmation as Charles Stanley spoke of “works” making you feel justified when in fact nothing but what Jesus did on the cross could ever justify you.  There is nothing you, personally, can ever do to make Him love you more or make you right in His eyes.  Nothing.  He was saying that just because you go to church three times a week, tithe 10%, teach Sunday School or sing in the choir --that does not justify you to Jesus.  He was making the point that you were made “free” from the bondage of the law but it hit home with a different message to my heart entirely.

I have spent nearly thirteen months assessing the Tsunami that decimated our lives August 2014; initially just trying to survive the storm - dodge flying debris, tread the rising flood waters, cling desperately to whatever small pieces of solid ground I could find and then after I survived the first waves of destruction I began trying to make sense of it. 

Prior to that storm I, like Peter, would have sworn nothing could shake my faith. I pretty much felt like I too, would have gone to prison or faced death in a minute.  I was “secure” in my faith and my relationship with God was, I thought, unshakable.  I was in church almost every week for the past 22 years, I tithed, and did all of the other things that I thought was expected of me as a Christian. I cared about people, I gave to charities and tried to help people in need.  I was proud to be able to do what little I did in the church and while I never consciously thought I could “work” my way into Heaven or gain brownie points with God or even work to make restitution for any sins in my life, I apparently did think it would somehow keep disasters of this magnitude away from my life because the first thing that hit me was the unfairness and the devastating feeling that I had been betrayed by the God I loved and trusted. 

Obviously, I had a huge issue with pride as well.  Let me tell you there is absolutely nothing that can humble you right down to the dirt like the devastation of losing three members of your family at once and the shame and horror and yes, even guilt of having the whole world believe the son you love with all your heart --took the life of his wife and child. 

While I recall thinking I would gladly give my life for God – I can confess here and now that I absolutely never entertained the illusion that I would be willing to give the life of my child or grandchild.  Giving one’s life sounds like the maximum sacrifice but let me assure you it is not.  I know first-hand what a maximum sacrifice looks like and it is certainly not my life.  My life has not meant two cents to me this entire year.  Sacrificing my life would seem like a cheesy consolation prize.

Like Peter, when three times he denied even knowing Jesus, I have come to the humbling conclusion – that my faith, love and loyalty has been “sifted as wheat" and found seriously lacking.   

The Seven Dwarves of Despair

Today I received an email from another grieving mom that I have come to know through the common bond of loss; whose son died five days after Brian, Kara and Paxton.  She has just come through not only her first year anniversary but her son's twenty-second birthday four days before.  She is in deep despair yet again.  She sent me this little excerpt from a book: The Art of Support: Reaching Out to Others in Times of Loss by Lee Franklin (Chapter Two)

The excerpt was called the Seven Dwarves of Despair.  I found it spot on and decided to include it here for obvious reasons.

Spacey - This dwarf moves in almost immediately, he causes difficulty in concentrating, emotional and mental numbness.  He is forever losing things, forgetting things - but his presence is protection from being overwhelmed with the reality of our loss.  The world is still moving rapidly, while the world of a griever is s-l-o-w and out of sync.

Empty - Focuses on the pain within - loss of purpose.  Why bother (with just about anything)? He usually shows up with his best friend, Lonely.

Lonely - Constant reminder that the world is missing a very important person and telling you that life will NEVER be the same - or even good again.  Anytime you go out, all you see is other families with the equivalent of who you lost.  A huge void is there and our task is to learn to re-engage in life with that huge, missing piece.

Guilty - You should have... Why didn't you...? This dwarf looks for someone to blame - and often results in self-blame (and reasons don't have to be and often are NOT rational).  We often blame ourselves for contributing to the loss; for not handling the grief "well" and for the effect our grief has on others - why should they want to be around us when we don't like our own company?  Oh, there is no shortage of guilt!

Worry - Loss triggers fear and anxiety.  Worry is an outward manifestation of fear.  Fretting, dreading, doubting and our minds playing "worst case scenario" of any and every situation is common.  It is a natural response to fear the unfamiliar - and the world has become extremely unfamiliar.  A feeling of abandonment is also common with this dwarf.

Angry - Often misunderstood and difficult to express, one may deny that anger exists.  Whether acknowledged or suppressed, anger is a powerful emotion - it needs to be expressed responsibly and respectfully.

and Gloomy - Very unpredictable - this dwarf is the first to come and the very last to leave.  We expect a certain amount of sadness with a loss; but the "trigger' that come at unexpected times can suddenly intensify the feelings to an overwhelming level.  Seeing an item in the grocery store, hearing a song, seeing an old email, or finding a piece of paper with their handwriting on it, can put us in an embarrassing predicament quickly.

These are just a small sampling of the crazy emotions that rule the life of a griever.  Trust me, there are hundreds more. 

You've Got Mail...

Today I got an email --- from Kara.  Someone of course had hacked her old Email from six years ago and there in my inbox blaring at me like it is perfectly normal, is an unnerving email that says it is from "Kara".

This morning while trying to clear up some memory on my new almost full phone, thanks to the fact that I saved every text from my old phone and six hundred pictures and all the spur of the moment videos Kara would send daily,  I was surprised to find a string of texts from Brian that have managed to elude me for a solid year. They were sent from his new work phone and a different number so they had not come up under his name when I had searched for any emails or texts from them. In it he had sent me a picture of, as he put it, "your little monkey" as he was eating breakfast in the Waffle House.  It was taken the weekend before they all died.

So today I sort of heard from all three of them and that made for a very hard day.

We are back home from my "run away" vacation - the distraction that was supposed to keep me from remembering the first anniversary of their death. It did it's job, but I had to come home sometime and our first day home is Sunday --the day Paxton and I always played hide and seek with the couch cushions after we got home from church and Sunday School together.  Then afterwards Brian would call and say: "Hey, how long are you going to be home..." and he and Kara would come by to pick the baby up. So it was typically a day that I usually had play time with Paxton and saw both Brian and Kara and today, in one day, I get an email from her, a new string of texts from him and a picture of Paxton...Meltdown.


These were likely another "gift" but it has been a hard couple of weeks and it just seemed like taunting at the time.

The View From the Caboose...

I have mentioned in several posts as well as in personal conversation how I relate the events of this past year to being hit by a hundred-car freight train.  We have passed the First Year anniversary and here is a look back at the freight train that plowed through my life in 2014. 

The Engine – My sister and best friend was diagnosed with Acute Myeloid Leukemia and there were at least 25 cars attached to that alone as I watched my sister and my best friend my whole life go through the most devastating all-consuming "vacuum" that sucked what used to be her life into a dark and spiraling black hole.  Fatal disease, 21-day hospital stay, having to move out of her home and completely away from her pets, her church and her grandchildren and in with a 24 hour a day caregiver, 100-days in the bone marrow transplant unit every single day for 6 to 12 hours a day while she is poked and prodded and little pieces of her literally sliced away, four types of high-dose chemotherapy; hair loss; mouth sores; nausea; diarrhea; high dose total body irradiation, multiple painful bone marrow biopsies, bone marrow transplant, my niece being the donor and having to go through all that entailed, graft vs. host disease of the skin, lungs and eyes,  dangerous/life-threatening treatments including high doses of steroids, at least eighteen other scary medications, UVA light treatments, three different dangerous viruses, complications of diabetes and liver disease.  I am committed to be her caregiver for at least the next six months and six weeks into her treatment and a mind-numbing schedule…the rest of the cars begin to hit.

·        There is a death in my immediate family – Huge.  But not just a death but the death of my child. And not just the death of my child which would have been horrific alone but my youngest son, my 29-year old daughter in law and my 2 ½ year-old grandbaby – the child I have cared for and helped raise since his birth --are all gone. 

·        It is a tragic, horrific death – all three found shot in their home and not found for more than thirty-six hours.

·        I now have a grueling schedule trying to care for my sister – without a brain and a body that doesn't work.  I am so devastated I cannot function.  I cannot grieve or cry or curl up in the bottom of the closet like I want to.  Yet I am incapable of doing the job I have committed to and my sister's life depends on it. Guilt. Fear. Devastation.

·        The captive audience and brunt of my raging anger is my very sick sister that I love desperately and fear losing.  Guilt.

·        We were never allowed to see any of them and because of the condition of the bodies they could not have a traditional funeral and burial.

·       They say it was a murder/suicide committed by my son!  Impossible.  They don’t know him.  This cannot be true.  But they will not listen or investigate for any other possibilities.  They have made up their minds and they are done.

·        Because of the situation and the belief that Brian did this –

o   There is instant breakdown between the families - understandably.

o   They will be separated forever.  Kara and the baby in one state and Brian in another.

o   We do not even get to attend the memorial service for the daughter in law I loved nor the baby I adored. 

o   “We” actually feel guilt, remorse and shame even though we did nothing and do not even believe for one minute that Brian did this.

·        There is strong evidence that suggests it was a staged suicide and a possible hit on their lives:

o   Weeks later we hear from Kara's mom that Kara told friends and family over a year ago about an incident that happened where an acquaintance of Brian’s young adult son came to their door high on something and looking for trouble when Brian refused to let his son go out and called the police to the boy he left screaming threats: “This is not over. I will come back and kill you and your whole ^&^%*$ family!” 

o   Fear was the reason Kara asked for a gun.

o   The only ground-floor window was unlocked and partially open, hidden from the street view behind tall, thick shrubbery while all of the doors in the house were locked and dead-bolted.

o   Only two spent bullet casings were ever found. 

o   The missing bullet casing was from the shot that killed Brian - the last one alive; so how exactly does that happen? And why was this not a red-flag?

o   Though Brian is an avid writer – no suicide note is ever found.

o   Nothing was wrong in his life; we talked to both he and Kara just hours before and everything was fine.  They had plans to take the baby to a birthday party the next day and he called me asking what time we would be home so he could come over and bring the baby for a visit afterward.

o   According to the investigators, they had “all” put on pajamas and gone to bed. And no one found this even a tiny bit odd?

o   There was no reference to any domestic issues on their phones, I-Pad or computer – just sweet bantering back and forth between Brian and Kara the same afternoon this happened.  Why were these items not taken as evidence for the investigation?

·       We begged the county sheriff’s department for ten months to give us all of the information about the investigation that led them to this determination.  We were told the GBI would be heading up the investigation and there would be a ballistics test, a toxicology screen, an autopsy and a report of the findings would be sent to them upon completion.  Somewhere around four weeks later in a call to the GBI we find out that none of that is true. Four weeks after the bodies have all been cremated and after Serve-Pro has cleaned and decontaminated the house – destroying any evidence.  I demanded a meeting with all of the investigators --twice and all we got was “cover your ass” answers and even blatant lies.

·       They did not take finger-prints or physical evidence from around the open window, ballistics tests or test for blood evidence that proved Brian was the shooter.

·        They offered no explanation for why the other shell casing was never found.  Small room, wood floors and Serve Pro completely emptied it and went through every inch of it and no bullet casing was ever found. The Sergeant actually said and I quote. “Giving you closure is not our responsibility.  All we need is cause and manner of death and we have that.”

·        WSB TV showed up on the scene, then stole from Kara's Facebook account, my copyrighted photographs of the family taken in my yard the fall before and blasted this horror all over National Television – before we could even notify family.

·        Brian’s children had to be told by phone for fear they would see it on the news.

·        One of the best dads that I ever knew was now left with the most horrible legacy imaginable.

·        The entire free world now saw him as a monster.

·        That legacy spilled over onto what was left of my family as friends and even some relatives turned away from all of us in hatred and disgust and said horrible things about Brian on Facebook hurting his children as if this horrific tragedy was not bad enough.

·        I am devastated and in disbelief that people actually do not think that I should love or mourn the loss of my son.

·        We have to hold a private Memorial service and hire security to keep the news crews out.

·        We live in a small town.  Everywhere we go strangers ask us about it, stare at us and even point.  I no longer feel comfortable in the town that I have made my home for 23 years.

·        A formal company-wide announcement was made on my job.  That was comfortable.  I have nowhere to run and nowhere to hide.

·        Guilty by association - “We” are treated as if we are guilty by the Coroner’s office, the Sheriff’s Department, the GBI.  We are given no information, no consideration, no respect and certainly no sympathy.  There is the family of the victims of this God-awful tragedy…and then there is us.

·        I actually feel guilt with regards to Kara’s family because they believe my son caused their loss.

·        We quickly realize there is no justice for Brian – no matter how we fight.  No one is going to do anything to try and prove his innocence because their minds are made up.  A judgment call made on a gruesome crime scene in about fifteen minutes will leave a tragic legacy for him and the rest of us completely destroyed.  They have been his accuser, witness, judge and jury with a very biased point of view.  Sentence is passed – guilty.  He is guilty.  We are guilty by association.  They half do their jobs, piss away evidence, release the scene and allow any evidence of a crime to be destroyed. They lie to us about what has been done that proves this. Without knowing him, without giving him the benefit of the doubt, because of the horror of the scene they let their opinions of him get in way of them doing their jobs.

·        The house is contaminated with hazardous bacteria and all of their personal belongings have to be thrown out.  There are no clothes, no shoes - absolutely nothing “personal” left to us.  All of the baby’s clothes and shoes, his beloved blanket, his binkies and the handmade heirloom memories – made and given by both grandmothers - gone.  The house looks as if he never even existed.  There is no evidence anywhere of the beautiful little boy that graced our lives for 2 ½ years.  As if he had just been erased.

·        There is no will so his two older children are left not knowing who the next of kin is. They have no idea how to file an estate and since no one actually now owns it, no one can legally sell the house. 

·        There is no insurance.  The children cannot pay for his service or cremation.

·         My heart breaks for his other two children.  They are lost in a sea of grief and confusion.

·         My heart breaks for my daughter who has to oversee the decontamination and clean-up of her beloved family’s home.  Meeting with Serve-Pro discussing gut-wrenching details of things no one should ever have to see or hear.

·         We have the sad job of having to find homes for their two dogs.

·         My daughter and I are left with a huge physical and financial mess trying to intervene and sort out everything, deal with the personal property, the bills, calling the creditors, the house, the stray belongings left unclaimed in the house.

·         We have to start foreclosure proceedings on the house in order to be able to do anything with it and get out from under the bills that keep piling up and the yard maintenance. 

·         In the wake of the worst tragedy one can imagine we hire a lawyer for help and he decides like everyone else that we are in a vulnerable position and he decides to capitalize on our tragic circumstances so he bills us 2 ½ times the price he originally told me it would cost to handle the standard foreclosure - and it was, regardless of the circumstances, just a standard foreclosure to him.

·        Since there was no will the home that he and Kara worked so hard on has to be sold on the courthouse steps for a fraction of what it is worth; leaving very little to his children and it was split four ways with Kara's parents.

·        All of the things the children or Kara’s sister did not take is still sitting in my building.  Six truckloads.  I now have the gut-wrenching job of going through it and then trying to “dispose” of what is left of my children’s lives.

·        From the fallout of this – I have lost the friend that I have shared the most intimate parts of my life with for the past 37 years.

·        I have lost many friends and relatives through this.

·        It has changed my perspective on EVERYTHING until I don’t even recognize who I am anymore.

·        It has aged me by ten years at least.

·        I have had a huge faith crisis through this and consequently have little security still as to who God really is in light of this horrific tragedy.  I have a difficult time knowing what to pray for and why.  I have a difficult time believing all I read and hear about God’s protection.  Though I am better, I am still left feeling very vulnerable and empty at times.

·        It has threatened my other son’s marriage.

·        It has left me with a huge insecurity as far as how I feel about law enforcement.

·        It has left me feeling as if I do not belong in my home town and I am living in limbo not knowing where to go now.  This was my home.

·        There are actually family members that now avoid us and refuse to come to our home because it, and we, remind them of this loss and horrific tragedy.

·        I have had my feelings hurt over the people that I thought were friends that have completely deserted me through all of this. 

·        I myself am avoiding people that I care about that used to be in my life because I do not know how to tell them this.

·        And it is our belief that there is a killer walking free.

      So this is why I say it is like being hit by a train.  The hurts, the tragedies, the devastation, the insults, the guilt, the changes, the horrors like the separate cars of a freight train just kept on plowing over us one right behind the next for the whole entire year.