Slow Down * Enjoy Life

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.

I certainly could not have ever imagined on the morning of May 19, 2009 that this would be the last kiss I would give my wife.

After waiting months for a LONG Chicago winter to end and the summer to finally arrive, this 80 degree day was the perfect opportunity to get out with the kids.  And it appears that that was exactly what she thought as well.  I sent her a text message in the morning letter her know about the upcoming pet parade.  I called her from work sometime in the morning.  I didn’t hear back from her, which wasn’t unusual given the reponsibility of raising two little ones.  Normally she would head to her mom’s house for some help, but today was different.  Her family was getting the pool ready and she decided just to stay at home and wait for me to get back from work.

Since she didn’t speak to anyone in the morning, we are not sure where she was headed.  Our best guess, or my best guess, is that she went towards downtown lagrange.  Perhaps she went to walk by some homes that were for sale that we looked at online the night before or went to walk by the new Francesca’s restaurant or maybe she headed to a park. 

I had a voicemail on my phone after I finished with my lunchtime run at the office…again taking advantage of the seemingly beautiful day.  That voicemail turned out to be the unimaginable…when I finally arrived at the hospital, more than an hour later, i found out that my life, and the lives of my children, would no longer be the same.