May 15, 2011

NEXT BLOG

I like to click the box at the top of my page that says "NEXT BLOG". I just clicked forward to the next 20 blogs and found 14 with gorgeous pictures of food and exotic recipes. I found 3 that had lovely pictures of gardens in back yards with park benches. I found 2 blogs from broken-hearted women who got their hearts crushed.

....and I just write about chickens.

Today I'm going to write about something of substance. I have had an anxious and heavy heart lately.

February 20, 2011 my beautiful Cousin Dana.....

...lost her 22 year-old daughter to a drunk driver. A 21 year-old man, was driving with a suspended license in an unregistered and uninsured car, 80+ mph on a 35 mph road and in his drunk and drugged-up state, t-boned and killed our beautiful Rachel Lynn Millhouse.


The drunk driver was charged with Vehicular Homicide and DUI charges. The scuttlebutt is that this is his 3rd DUI. WHAT!! The pain and suffering because of this man's actions will be on-going forever!
The cross designates the intersection in Missoula, Montana where Rachel died.

"Educate your children to self-control,
to the habit of holding passion and prejudice
and evil tendencies subject to an upright and reasoning will,
and you have done much to abolish miery from their future
and crimes from society."
---Benjamin Franklin
US author, diplomat, inventor, physicist, politician & printer (1706-1790)

To add an increased sadness to our family, Dana's mother, Janet N. Lee, who is also my Aunt passed away this week.
Aunt Janet Lee was a sweet lady with a laugh that twinkled.
Dana and her family have had so much to deal with in the past 3 months. It seems inconsequential to talk about my pain, but as a cousin and a niece, I am hurting. Praying gives me comfort, but I still cry when I'm talking to the Lord. My heart hurts for the pain of my family.

THEN my sister Lee......
Lee with her daughter Lindsey who was just crowned Prom-Queen
...was almost killed exactly 2 months to the day after Rachel was killed. She experienced a true miracle and for that, I am eternally grateful. She was also t-boned by a driver. We don't know why he ran the red light but his little pickup hit her Suburban so hard, that she spun around in circles and then flipped over on the hood.

Lee's Suburban.

She was wearing her seatbelt which saved her life as she dangled helplessly in that smashed vehicle. The many emergency responders cut her out of her vehicle. She is in excellent shape and I believe her very strong muscles kept her spine in place.

Phew, that was a lot of unloading. I think I'm going to go to the NEXT BLOG.