At the age of 41, I had been a wife for 18 years, and we were blessed with three children who at the time of August 2011 were the ages of 16, 14, and 11. My son was the oldest with my two daughters that were born after him. On August 10, 2011, my husband had a tragic accident at work that left him immediately paralyzed from the chest down. He was in the trauma unit of intensive care and courageously battled for his life for the 5 days that he spent there. On Sunday, August 14, 2011, the surgeons believed that they had him stable enough for surgery, but tragically my husband died in pre-op and was suddenly gone from our family forever. The next year and 10 months were filled with many things for my children and I as we were forced to adjust to living with the pain of his absence and to suddenly being without our dad and husband.
My two daughters and I were in no way prepared for what was coming next as we had not even recovered from the loss of my husband and their dad. On June 26, 2013, my son, PK, at the age of 18, was driving to pick up his sisters who were ages 16 and 14, and suddenly encountered a heavy down pour of rain. As my son rounded a curve then his car began to hydroplane. My son overcorrected and began driving sideways down the road only to fatally encounter a UPS truck that tried to move over and was unable to. As the UPS truck crashed into my son’s car, suddenly my incredible only boy was dead on impact and was gone from our lives in this world forever.
On June 26, 2013, not only was I a widow, but now I was also without my only son, my first born child who I loved with every part of me. My two daughters were without their daddy and their big brother. Our grief journey has been filled with excruciating pain and heartache… with valleys that seemed so low that I was curled up in a ball on the floor sobbing and on my knees in the shower crying and not knowing how to stop. The pain seemed to cut so deep that I just did not even know how to function. My blog will share my experiences of what has happened and what is happening on my grief journey along with some of my daughters’ experiences.
