Saddest News of My Life

We were set to go home to Texas on December 13th. My baby sister is getting married. Friday, when I got home from work, I was complaining about what a long day it had been to my husband. About three minutes from walking in the door, my vonage phone starts ringing. It is probably about 315pm here, so in Texas it was 1215am. Nate says, "it's your mom, she has been calling." I knew right then, something was wrong. I answered it and she just said, "Cassey." That is pretty much all I remember. A know I screamed out and put the phone down, and then tried to regain some composure to listen to her.

MY.BROTHER.Died.

How can this be possible? These kinds of things do not happen to our family. Anyone that knows me for anything, knows just how close we are as a family. He was killed in a car wreck. Just a little bit prior he had emailed my mom a murial that he had finished painting for the kids on the wall at Truman Smith, where he works. My brother-- my brother. So, we head home today. We will land in Dallas Saturday afternoon, and Nate's family is going to pick us up. All I want to do it just cry in my mom and sister's arms.

For those of you that do not know- my brother, Shane, has three of the most amazing kids that I refer to as my babies. He is the most aweswome dad. How fair is this? I am grateful right now that I am not there.. so I am not doing all the hard things with them. Sounds selfish, but I do not think I could handle it. They have to tell the kids, they checked out his truck, they saw him. I cant.

It hurts so bad. I was due home in a week. I havent seen my brother in a year and a half. We just recently had our last talk. He was telling me that he could not wait to see me. He kept telling me that I have to move closer after this tour in Japan. He said that his kids looove me so much and I am an awesome Aunt. I told him, I knew that- and I can still be here for them and have that relatinoship no matter where we are. The attitude of a military wife.

But then the hard thing is what he said.. he said, "No, I want to be an awesome Uncle to your baby like you have been to my kids." Now, he will never meet our baby. Nor will he ever be an uncle. It is so hard to understand all of this. When things like this happen to other people, you say things to them.. but when it is you, it is hard to believe the things you would tell someone else.

This exciting trip home.. all of the awesome things planned around my baby sisters wedding, how do we function? How do we continue? How do we smile? How do we laugh?

Yesterday I would go through spurts. If you know me, you know /i had showing emotions, so I stayed good for the most part. Waking up throughout the 4 hours I slept.. sucked. The memory of what has happened, laying there, and not being able to go back to bed. It hurts. I hurt. We all hurt. Today, I dont know if I will have those spurts or not, or if it will just be constant. Right now, since 5am, it has been constant. I just need to get home, so I can let go and not feel like I have to be so strong.

I cant help but keep thinking.. if one of us, why not me? He has three amazing, beautiful chldren that will not remeber their daddy now. It just is not right. I dont even know. I am posting this because there are a lot of people curious as to what happened. No one at home is getting online, but I can do nothing but sit here and wait to get on a plane. Soon, soon.

Thanks for the prayers,