What our family has been dealing with....

We recently returned from a week-long trip to Orlando, Florida. It was a much needed vacation, and a wonderful trip. However, while I wish to journal the trip and show the cute pictures we took, it does not feel appropriate at this time.

You see, on Sunday night, the last night of our trip, we received a phone call we never thought we would get. A dear friend, a brother, a cadet that we have known for years, was missing. John Alley, a Air Force Academy graduate whom my parents sponsored, did not return home after finishing class on Friday afternoon. His car was found totaled on the side of a highway in Pensacola, Florida at 5 AM on Saturday. There was no sign of injury in the car, but his keys, wallet, and cell phone were still there. Search dogs traced his scent from the car to across the road but then the trail went cold--we assumed a motorist picked him up. Since there was no sign of injury from the accident, authorities believed John could have been disoriented. His body was found in the water on the coast of Pensacola, Florida on Monday morning. An autopsy has been performed, and the results are still to be released. He was 26 and leaves behind a beautiful wife of 10 months who is 5 months pregnant with their first child.

I cannot describe the emotions our family has gone through. John and his family have been dear, dear friends of ours. John was sponsored by my parents while he was at the Air Force Academy--he was just a part of the family. If he needed a place to stay, he came to our house whether my parents were there or not. If he needed a car, he had one. He was trustworthy, intelligent, and all around--a GOOD person.

Taylor met him for the first time a few years ago. They instantly became friends and could sit and talk about anything, as if they could pick up from their last conversation each time they saw one another. We talked about he and Emily coming to visit us, and attended their wedding last July.

We have been through the emotions of shock, disbelief, sorrow, grief....the list goes on. I can't even describe.........I truly am at a loss for words. This was the most sudden, unexpected thing. John is such a remarkable person, he will be missed and loved.

My heart is in pain for the sympathy I feel for Emily and the families involved. We care for these people very, very much. I wish I could just reach out to Emily and just help her and hug her and do something for her! I love her dearly.

The funeral has not been announced of where and when it will be, but both Taylor and I desperately want to be there.

I have never experienced a death that has hit so close to home for me. This has sparked some special conversations between Taylor and I--we have discussed things that would normally never come up in a regular day-to-day conversation. It has been a wonderful thing for us, where we have been able to connect on a level never before.

We truly are grateful for the gospel in our lives--that we have the knowledge that we will be together again, for it is the sealing power that is here on earth that will seal us together in heaven. But it is only through that power that we will be together in the eternities. For what is bound on earth will be bound in heaven. I pray that Emily will feel the comfort and peace that comes from this incredible sealing power that she and John entered into when they were married in the House of the Lord last July. There is life after death, this time on earth is but a glimpse, and while it feels like John was taken from this earth so early, I know it is not what it seems when we look at it from an eternal perspective. I am so grateful for this knowledge because it is at times like this that it makes the grieving process a little bit easier to stomach.

Our prayers are with Emily, their unborn child, and all friends and family.

"God be with you til we meet again."