April 30

Oh how much life can change between blog posts. And in this case, not in a good way. I'm not talking about the move. Yes, since my last post, I packed up my life in DC, said some tough goodbyes, dealt with a challenging move, and started my new job in Columbia. I had a wonderful first week of work.

And then, I got some horrible, awful, life-changing news. Friday evening, my stepbrother was killed in a motorcycle accident just two hours before his brother's wife had their first baby, Bella. Life and Death in the same day.

I have struggled with figuring out exactly how to express my grief. Some dear and wonderful people have expressed the loss through beautiful music, words of wisdom, cooking up a storm, using their ministerial skills way beyond the call of duty, or just plain being there.

At first, there was the total disbelief of what was happening to my family. As my sister said when I first saw her after learning the bad news, "So, he's just....gone???"

My sister and I were the only ones in town as my parents had gone to TN for their granddaughter's birth. The accident happened in NC. There was a period of time where we had little information. We tried putting the pieces together while informing key people of what happened. My sister, her sweet husband, and our dad (yes, we are what you would call a well-blended family) took off to TN in the wee hours of Saturday morning to drive my mom, stepdad, stepdad's first wife and her husband back to our hometown as none of them were in any condition to drive. I stayed behind to take care of phone calls and get the house ready. We were able to have a support system waiting in the driveway when they arrived. And boy did we ever need it.

As I tried to process everything, a flood of emotions hit me. I thought of the last time I saw him. Just 6 days before, he dropped what he was doing on a rainy Saturday afternoon to help me move my belongings into a storage building . When we finished, he showed me how to lock up the new lock. I hugged him and thanked him. He told me he was glad to have me back in SC. We were both so excited to start new jobs. He supported me through the entire process, sent me text messages to wish me luck on my interview, and was one of the first to congratulate me. Somehow it just doesn't seem fair that he won't experience the joy that I did last week of starting the new job after a long-awaited process.

As most things in my life, the memories I shared with Randy were quiet ones. I remember one of our first awkward blended family holidays. It was Thanksgiving and he spent the entire day with me by the fireplace talking and put me at ease with our new situation. By the end of the day, I knew having him as a part of my new family was going to be a wonderful thing.

More recently on our family beach trip, I remember waking up the first morning and sharing breakfast with him on the screened in porch overlooking the ocean. We were quiet. But he was there.

We've been paired up a lot in the last few years, as we've held down the "single" title for the fam. When taking our last family photos, the photographer asked everyone to "pair" together with their significant other. Randy and I looked at each other, laughed it off, and took each other's arms jokingly. When we split up clean up duty during our beach week by couples, he was my partner. (And yes, to those of you that think Randy didn't know how to clean, he actually did help!) When our family went out to eat a few months ago the waiter went around the table asking how the check would be split. Again mainly by couple, Randy told the man that we’d be together. Now we're not.

I don't think the sadness will ever completely leave us. I don't think we'll ever get our answer to WHY??? But I do know we have been surrounded by layers upon layers of people who have enclosed us in a bubble of love. New friends, old friends, and friends we didn’t even know we had. They’ve been praying with us, hugging us, feeding us, crying with us, reminiscing with us, and hurting with us. And I do know that we have been blessed by a precious baby girl. And Randy would most definitely want us to celebrate that.