Rewinding all the way to Friday. At some point during the day on Friday, I was talking to my mom and she mentioned that my older brother, Brian, had called her and said he wasn’t feeling well. He was supposed to have his 4 year old daughter, Kayleigh, with him this weekend, but since he was not feeling well and did not want to expose her, he asked his ex-wife to take care of her. We assumed he went to the Doctor or a walk-in clinic or something of the like. Saturday, My mom called a few times, left a voicemail, emails, etc. By Saturday night, the panic was setting in (at the time, I didn’t know how stressed she was about this). So, Sunday morning, as Britt and I loaded up our 3 kids to get to the church by 7:30 since it was our long weekend to serve, I got a text from my mom saying she and Daddy still had not heard from Brian, so they were driving to Dallas.
I spent the next few hours texting her with “suggestions” – call the police, call his ex-wife, call ANYONE… But they were determined to get there and see what was going on for themselves. The last text I got from my parents was about 9:45 and they said they were crossing the Red River – which meant they were about an hour from his house. About 11:15 (while I was super busy with my LifeChurch Host Team Leader duties), I glanced at my phone and saw a missed call and a voice mail from my mom. My heart sunk, I RAN across the church lobby to my husband, basically THREW my phone at him and told him to call my mom back (I had listened to the 2 word voice mail that said “CALL ME” through a broken, teary voice, and I knew it was not good).
While dialing the phone, Britt lead me to the church office, quickly followed by our Volunteer Coordinator who I can only assume saw the events unfolding in the lobby. She dutifully and lovingly held my hand (as I clung to her with my very life, pretty sure I screamed her name once, but I can’t be sure) while Britt spoke with my mom on the phone – from about 30 feet away and with his back to me. After a brief conversation and some head nodding, he turned around, and shook his head with tears in his eyes. I screamed . It was like a tragic scene from Law & Order or CSI. I don’t remember all of the next 30 minutes of my life, but I was ushered into a side office, and I just remember people in an out of the room, a box of tissues being handed to me, lots of pats and shoulder rubs and a HUGE bear hug from my husband.
Some dear friends took the 3 Little Weavers from me for the afternoon, and Britt and I headed south. Longest. Drive. EVER! I felt like we would never get there. Had to stop for gas pretty early on, then a restroom break not too far from our destination. I spent most of the ride on the phone with friends and family, sharing our tragic, horrible, awful, NIGHTMARE. Only I didn’t realize this was only the first step.
