Is this thing on?

*brushing off the dust*

Wow. It's been a while since I've been here. I spend much of my time giving my less than humble opinion to various and sundry message boards. Maybe I need to work on the humble part a bit. Nah!!

So where has life taken me in these last few months? Nowhere I'd ask you to follow.

In July, my sister who lives in Louisiana came for a visit. At the tag end of her visit, she, our mother, her older two kids and the oldest daughter of our younger sister were on their way to decorate for our grandma's 80th birthday party. On the way, they were broadsided by a truck that blew through a stop sign at nearly 70 miles per hour. My niece and nephew, the oldest children of both of my younger sisters, were killed instantly. My sister lives today only thanks to the side airbag her van had. My mother and other niece were also injured pretty severely.

You can sort of prepare, as you get older I suppose, for the deaths of your parents and grandparents. Less than four weeks after these tragic deaths, my grandfather gave up trying to hang on and passed away. It was so much easier to accept this. He had lived a long and satisfying life. I have a lifetime of happy memories and very few regrets regarding him.

But you don't even consider that you'll ever bury children. They weren't my children. With the most guilty heart I thank God that my children - difficult as our relationships have been - are still alive. I grieve for my parents who lost two of their grandchilren. I only have to grandkids but I can't imagine losing either of them. I grieve for my sisters. They hurt in ways that I, as their big sister forever dedicated to taking care of them, can not alleviate. I hurt for my nieces who are missing a big brother and a big sister. But I hurt for myself.

I hurt because I only saw my nephew TJ 4 times in his life. I did not know him. And that opportunity is forever lost. I hurt because Kat was my mini-me. We were so much alike that my mother often called her "Tami." There were times in the last couple of years that I saw her and nearly wept. Not because she looked just like me (though the resemblance was there) but because she was like me. A little awkward. Tall and gangly. Pretty but so unsure of herself. A tomboy who wanted to be a girly girl and didn't quite know how to get from here to there.

I ache for the regrets. Kat died two weeks after her 10th birthday. On that day, I went to my friend's house to scrap. I could have told the friend we'd need to reschedule even though my sister hadn't told me about any planned celebration. A few weeks before the accident, we were at the lake and Kat wanted to play. I wanted to sit in the sun.

But one regret I don't have is that for the last couple of years, Mike and I have been taking Kat and her sisters to church. Kat had a ready and real testimony of God's work in her life. She invited others to church often. She told people about Jesus. She befriended new kids at church.

This picture was taken the day before Kat and TJ were killed. It's a vacation bible school program the girls all attended with some friends. TJ didn't go because he was a little too old (not quite 12). The niece who survived the crash told my oldest daughter that they had been singing when the accident happened. Thinking about that, it occured to me that they would have been singing the songs they learned in VBS. You can't know the peace it brings my heart to know that she went into eternity with praises to God on her lips.