Every picture has a story

 

I remember this day well. It was Tuesday, September 16th and I had just dropped Abby and Anna off at school when my mom called me. She wanted to know if we would like to join her at Biggby for coffee and donuts while she wasted time waiting for my grandma to be released from the hospital.

Alexis and I went to Biggby and met my mom. She had coffee, Alexis had donuts and I had a hot apple cider, my favorite treat in the fall. We talked about a lot of things including my pregnancy (I was about 9 weeks along). My mom received a phone call that my grandma would be a while longer and may not be released after all, so she told me she was going to go home and get some things done.

It's so hard to look at these pictures though. It seems like such a happy and innocent moment in our lives but we had no idea that in a few hours, our lives would change forever. They had already changed actually, but we weren't aware of it yet. My mom would go home and instead of getting cleaning done she would find a note on the garage door from the Grand Rapids police department. She would call them to hear the words that she hoped that she would never have to hear.

After that I went home, I probably took a shower and I know I put Alexis down for a nap. I honestly can't remember besides the fact that Alexis was napping so that is the logical sequence of events. Then my phone rang and it was my dad. "Are you alone?" What a strange question Papa, of course I'm alone. The girls are at school and Alexis is napping. Then it hit me that something had happened. Grandma?! I'm not ready for grandma to go yet and she was doing just fine this morning when I saw mom!
Then my dad said it, "I'm sorry I have to tell you this, but Julie took her own life yesterday".
"Are you serious?" Why did I ask that? Of course he was serious. No one would joke about something like that, but it was just the first thing that popped into my mind. Then I broke down, I sobbed and I couldn't catch my breath. I'm not sure if I could even describe what was going through my mind at that moment, but I remember that moment and how I felt all too well.

Every time that I look at these pictures I am taken back to the moment. I am taken back to hearing those terrible words that my sister was gone forever. I see those smiling faces in the photo and I can only think of the pain that followed later that day.

I have deleted these pictures off of my phone so I don't have to look at them every time that I scroll through my photos. I have kept these pictures on my computer because I do want to remember the happiness in this moment and I hope that one day I am able to look at them again and see that.