Rough Start to 2010... (1/23/10)

Hi everyone--

I'm so sorry that I haven't posted in 22 days, but we've had a bit of a rough start to this brand new year (and decade). After the flurry of holiday activity, we sent the kids back to school-- for one day and then we got hit by the huge snowstorm that swept across the Midwest. Usually, I would be excited about the snow (and snow days!), and, for Tuesday and Wednesday of that first week of January, I focused on sledding, hot chocolate, and deciding when it was safe to try driving on our hills. However, that focus soon shifted with a phone call that forever changed the lives of everyone in my family...

We had managed to escape our neighborhood on Thursday, January 7, even though we were still under a Level Two snow advisory with more snow on the way, and I took Emmy and Ellie-Kate to the rec center for Ellie-Kate's play group. We were just about done at the rec center and off to Walmart for more milk when I received a call from Britti. I forced her to tell me what was wrong, and she told me that Robbie, my precious little brother, had died. Stunned, I asked if he had been in a wreck. She told me that, no, he had died of an apparent heart attack at age 46-- no warning signs at all. We had just seen him at our family Christmas on December 27, and he had seemed perfectly fine.

That moment changed the brilliant white of beautiful snow falling to dark shades of grey as we scrambled to make arrangments and piece together what had happened and when. From the best that we can gather, Robbie had been to his favorite bar, The Keg in Leesburg, on New Year's Eve, but he left early. Friends at the bar said that he didn't look well, and they knew that he was out of sorts because his hair was not completely in place. (He really liked for his hair to be in place!) He always took a shower in the morning so we're guessing that he collapsed the next morning after finishing in the shower. No one had heard from him after New Year's Eve-- not even when folks submitted their picks to him for Fantasy Football on January 3. In fact, his fantasy football friends were concerned after they didn't hear from him... Word began to spread that no one had really heard from him, and one of his colleagues at Gulf Stream, his long-time employer, contacted the police on January 7. The police found him that morning. The autopsy indicated that he died of a massive heart attack due to almost 100% blockage of the left side of his heart.

We're all incredibly sad... The girls loved their Uncle Robbie, and he really loved them as well. In all of this tragedy, I am so grateful that we had our last Christmas together AND that he got to meet Ellie-Kate. Praise God that we decided to go special needs and that we locked on Ellie-Kate when we did. If we had decided to stay on the "healthy" child list, we would still be waiting, missing out on our beautiful, perfect daughter, and realizing that Robbie would never meet his new niece. Instead, he did get to hold her and to watch as she played with the cousins at Christmas. Thank you, God, for that blessing!!

Over the past few weeks, we have traveled back to Indiana for the visitation and funeral and continued to work through all of the details that must be cared for after such a sad and sudden loss. We are truly grateful to all of the people who have reached out to us during this awful time-- especially all of our friends (a special "shout out" from me goes to Michelle and Shari!!!), various co-workers (folks at Indiana Restaurant Equipment, Penguin Point, Gulf Stream Coach, and Ohio University), friends from Albany Baptist Church, and, of course, our extended family members. Our family couldn't have made it through this difficult situation without them!!

Meanwhile, of course, life goes on... somehow... Due to the snow, I couldn't leave right away for Indiana, and we couldn't get a house/pet sitter until Monday morning. Thus, I elected to keep with original plans to take Chelsea's Girl Scout troop on its annual ski trip during the week-end of January 9-10. The girls had already paid for the trip, and we would lose the money if we didn't go. I sat in the lodge and kept track of the girls while they went on the slopes. They had a blast on the great base of new snow. We returned home from West Virginia late on January 10 and left before dawn for Indiana.

Even though we were in Warsaw under sad circumstances, the kids managed to find some joy in being together. Phoebe and Brodie (my sister Teresa's kids) LOVE Ellie-Kate, and they had a blast playing with her and Emmy. One of my friends (Shari) has a daughter in high school too, and she came to the funeral home to be with Chelsea, and Chelsea actually went over to Shari's house on Monday night so that she could spend time with Kylie. Robbie would have been amused by all of their antics :)

Since we returned from Warsaw, we have been busy with catching up with work and school. Chelsea missed auditions for One Acts during our short trip to Indiana so she's going to focus on track in the spring. She had only one day of review at school before jumping right into a week of mid-term exams. Fortunately, Emmy didn't miss much at school, and Ellie-Kate is getting back in the swing of things, even though she keeps asking about her cousins' dog, Snickers.

Britti is making progress on her thesis, and she just applied for the Disney College Program. She passed her web interview (labeled as a "strong candidate!!), and she has her phone interview on Wednesday.

As we move forward, we're blessed that we have fun things to anticipate. Today, we just celebrated 10 months with our wonderful daughter, Ellie-Kate!! I kissed her right at 9:30 a.m.-- the minute that we first saw her in person :) On Tuesday, our baby girl will turn 2 years old, and we're so glad that we get to celebrate THIS birthday with her in Athens!! We're going to have a Mickey Mouse Clubhouse cake, take pictures at Walmart, and open presents. On Saturday, eight of her friends are coming over for a Sesame Street-themed party. Emmy has put herself in charge of games (yes, a future cruise ship director!!), and we're sure that her little friends from church and the neighborhood will have a blast with Ellie-Kate at her first big birthday party! We'll try to post pictures from those upcoming events as soon as we can.

In the meantime, we hope that you enjoy the following sets of pictures from the first three weeks of January. We pray that you're having a great start to this year, and we ask that you keep our family in your own prayers as we continue to deal with this very unexpected loss.

Fondly--

Christie