Success Story

On January 9th, 2004 at FOUR IN THE MORNING, the doorbell rang at our home. My husband headed to the door thinking, "Who in the world is here at this hour?" Almost instantly, he came back to the bedroom and said, "There are two police officers here - they won't say what they want." Grabbing my robe, I ran to the door. One of the police officers started to extend his hand as if to shake my hand and said, "Could we please sit down?"Instantly, my knees felt like rubber and the tears began to run down my face when I asked them, "WHICH ONE OF MY KIDS?!" My heart was telling me why they were here. Personally, I did not want to hear him saying that he was the Chaplin at the St Joseph Police Dept., as I repeated "Which one of my Kids?"He spoke very softly, trying to offer his sympathies. Finally, I heard him say: "Mark..."As my knees weakened and I found the sofa, my husband asked, "How did it happen?" The other officer said they didn't have complete information other than the fact that it involved a mountain lion...I kept telling myself this cannot be REAL-it's a dream-- it HAS to be a DREAM. Through the years of raising our 2 kids there was a mutual understanding and awareness "As a child they were important" so we always strived to never put off until tomorrow what they needed today. When you live through such a tragic accident as a parent, you never get over the loss of your child and there is never an understanding of why it happened in the first place.