June 25th, 2009:

I never thought that it would be difficult to shop for apples.  The little things are some of the hardest to deal with.  I was never really big into apples but Cari always had them around.  I think I might have a slight allergy to them.  I started going to the farmers market in La Grange and towards the end of the summer they would have a huge assortment from all over the area.  I think I like Honeycrisp the best but Gala and Fuji were always in the fridge.  And now I have at least a couple apples a week…usually with peanut butter.  And Ellie totally loves ’em too.  But at the store today when I went in to get some for her, I couldn’t believe how choked up I got over something so simple.

It’s something I know I need, we need, but it’s so easily avoidable.  It’s sort of like going to the gym.  The hard part is just getting yourself into the car.  Once you get there you’re glad you went.

So I somewhat randomly picked a person that I felt would best suit our situation.  You might be referred to organizations but it’s really just like opening the yellow pages, selecting a name and seeing what happens.  I was really just taking a chance and knew going in there that if I didn’t like them that I would just move on to someone else.  I was really surprised by some of the topics discussed / comments made during this initial meeting.

I went in there primarily for guidance; guidance for me, my kids, and the family.  One of the first things that was said to me was a comparison between my situation and another somewhat similar situation where the mother had passed from an anurism and the father had severe depression before and after the incident.  I found it rather uncomfortable that the therapist was using the example of another patient.  What if I knew of this patient?  Is she now going to use our situation as an example to others?  I let it go and hoped she would focus more on what to do rather than describing the pain of others.  However, after a number of additional, somewhat detailed, examples I asked her to stop bringing the issues of others into our conversation.  By this point I was completely uncomfortable and ready to leave her office.  Even after I asked her to stop with the examples, one of the last things she said had to do with her sister’s loss.  Again, what if I knew her sister?  Needless-to-say I’m not going back there again.  If she said those things to me I can’t imagine what she’d say to my kids. 

She did, however, offer some seemingly good advice so it wasn’t a complete waste of time.

Early in this whole thing the villageof LaGrange scheduled a special meeting to discuss safety on 47th and throughout the municipality.  We decided as a family that we were going to use the town’s pet parade the weekend before the meeting to spread the word and to put a face on this tragic event by creating fliers, distributing them to neighbors and acquiring as many petition signatures as possible. 

That morning we drove in a number of separate cars and stopped in front of our house to drop off some of the fliers for another friend to pick up.  When we arrived we stepped out of our car and walked over to K’s car.  On the radio was our wedding song, a popular Keith Urban track, so it wasn’t completely unusual to hear it but I was still a bit taken back.  A few seconds later I looked up into the tree above the car, in front of our house, and a white dove was there staring back down at us.  A white dove?  I can’t say that I’ve ever seen one anywhere, let alone at our house.  Whether or not this was her, which we hope & think it was, it will always have a special place among our many memories.