Most do not know this, but my husband, Steve, was out of town for work the night Andrew died.

After the ambulance left with Andrew, my mother in-law drove Morgan and myself to the hospital. I realized I had to call Steve to tell him what we thought at the time…that Andrew had tried to commit suicide. Steve said he was leaving right away. He was 5 hours away in Panama City Beach, Florida. He was a truck driver. I knew it would be longer for him to drive his truck back to work and then make the half hour drive home. That call was made at 1:00am. Steve didn’t get home until 7:30 that morning. I was sitting in the living room holding Ethan. My in-laws and Morgan were there as well.

I heard the car pull into the driveway. I jumped up and started crying. “OH MY G-D, how do I tell my husband this???” I went onto the porch as he was rushing up the stairs. He was crying. I was crying and said, “He’s gone, Stephen. He’s gone!” He ran up to me crying and we hugged and cried together for the loss of the precious human we had created.

When we went inside, Steve went to Morgan and Ethan, holding his surviving children as we all cried. He embraced his parents. At that moment, Morgan, who had been standing in the middle of the living room, started hysterically screaming.

“This is going to break our family apart! We will never survive this!”

Steve and I immediately rushed to her, “No! It won’t! Listen to me, we are going to get through this! Somehow, we are going to get through this, together! We will not let this ruin our family!”. We hugged her and assured her and calmed her.

And there it was. In the absolute darkest moment in our lives, there was the tiniest sliver of hope. Hope for each of us. Hope for our future. Hope for our family. Hope. Just hope. We did not even realize we had already chosen hope. It just happened.

Why am I sharing this today? Just hours before Andrew’s five year angelversary? Because I want everyone who is reading this to know that there is always hope. Maybe not recognizing it at the moment, but it will come. It took a long time for me to realize that.

Even in the darkest hour, there is always hope. Always look for the hope.

And always choose kindness and laughter.