From such happiness to unbelievable devastation...

After being home for about a week we had a few people over to watch the Superbowl. It was a great day. That night was just like any other and if I had the choice I wish I could go back to that day/night. Everything seemed so much simpler and made a lot more sense that day.

Driving to work the next morning, there was a bad accident on 405 South and I thought to myself, "I should call mom and dad to let them know so they can take another route into Bellevue that would be quicker." I reached for my phone and realized that there was a missed call already from, of all people, my parents. That was odd, I rarely hear from them at 7am. I called the house phone, dad answered and sounded more serious than usual. Immediately I knew something was wrong but went ahead and said "it looks like I missed a call from you guys this morning." All my dad said was "hold on" and he handed the phone to my mom. Definitely something wrong...but what? I was not prepared for what came next and couldn't have imagined it in my wildest dreams. This kind of thing doesn't happen in my life.

My mom got on the line and started explaining that Cami and Josh (my cousin Karna's kids) were headed out to a friends house in Tacoma, there was a drive-by shooting, Josh was in the hospital and that Cami was gone. Wait, what? "No, mom, no, that can't be!" I was trying to comprehend all of this while crying and driving down the road (probably not safe but I couldn't think clearly enough to do anything different). Our sweet Camers couldn't be gone, she had just sent me a text Sunday afternoon.

This doesn't happen in my life. This doesn't happen to anyone I know. It has only ever happened to people you see on TV or read about in the newspaper. The names and faces on the news reports are people in my life, my cousin's kids and my uncle. Why did this happen? I still can't make sense of it and it still makes me sad every day. It took me a week before I could call Karna - I knew that if I had called sooner it would have been a terrible conversation, or really, lack thereof. We would have said hello and I would have started crying and that would have been horrible. Instead I waited. And cried. And waited some more. When I finally called I was thankful I had as it was good to talk with Karna and hear how she was doing. I made it about 3/4 through the call before I started to cry so that was definite progress, but also still hard.

When Cami was born she was a preemie and just plain tiny so we had sent down all of my Cabbage Patch Kid clothes for her to wear. Talk about something hard to do as a teenager very attached to those cabbage patch kids!! Cami had a smile that would light up any room and a a very sweet and shy demeanor. It must be something that runs in family lines, but she also had a great laugh that you just couldn't listen to without joining in. Cami's life was cut way too short and that is partly why it has been so difficult to deal with this.

Cami was born 11/1/1989 in CA and left us on 2/7/10 at the young age of 20. Her service was on 2/20/10 with a viewing/open casket. It is not that I am all about seeing dead people, but I have found that it does help give me a sense of closure and was actually quite thankful for the opportunity to say goodbye. After the service everyone had one last chance to see her and when it was my turn I left a little piece of me with her that held a lot of significance for me. It was a blessing ring that I picked up in Sedona, AZ, when I had gone on my first vacation all by myself. It represented so many things for me and my life had changed so much after first holding on to it that I felt it was time to hand it off and Cami was the perfect recipient.

This is the last picture of Cami and I - taken at my Grandma's 90th birthday party. I am so thankful for this picture of us and think of her, my cousin Karna, and Josh everyday. Love you, Camers, wish you were still here!