In April of 2001 my oldest son Richard introduced my family to his new girlfriend....Evangeline....she was 16 and they had met at a church dance in March. On April 16th she was driving home from school in the mountain town of Woodland Park with a friend when she lost control of her car. It rolled down an embankment and she died instantly...her friend suffered nary a scratch.  My son Blaine was at a party on April 21st....the cops were called in about noise and found him pretty out of it....he freaked when they tried to put him in an ambulance and it took 11 paramedics and cops to get him strapped in for the ride....he had been slipped a drug in his drink....the next day me and my wife Ella spent the entire day praying for his life to be spared.  He awoke that next evening and came home with us. Blaine had suffered the loss of his best friend since kindegarten, Rob Coulon,  on the 26th of March. Rob had been diagnosed with cancer in late 1999 and had gone through a successful bone marrow transplant in California. He had returned home to Colorado in December of 2000 and Blaine visited him nearly daily.  In early March Rob got an infection in his leg and because his immune system wasn't strong enough to fight the infection, he passed away. Blaine was devastated. After my son came home from the hospital he seemed very different....still loving yet somehow distant....he was murdered 5 days after the party while closing the subway sandwich shop that he worked at.  I had the fortune to have called him at 9:40 pm, a mere 6 minutes before he died...my last words to him were "I Love You, Blaine."  About a month after his death he came to me in the most wonderful dream I've ever had....he was holding hands with a girl that looked kinda familiar to me and yet I knew not who she was.  He walked up to me and said he wanted to run the hills that were behind him (He and I ran together a lot) to which I replied "You can't Blaine, you've been shot and you need to heal." He smiled at me and said "I'm okay Dad." He then ran into the distance.  Now fast forward to last year.....my friend and I were visiting his grave when she told me that she had come to his grave soon after his death to pay her respects. She said that while there she saw a teenage girl about 40 feet North, crying and throwing rose-petals on another grave...she then laid down and sobbed for a while.  I asked her to show me the grave.  It turned out to be a girl named Melissa Joan Myles. She was 16 and was from another high school in town and had suffered a heart attack the day before Blaines death....she had hung on until about 3 hours before my sons muder before she died.  As I looked at the oval picture on her headstone I got quite a chill down my spine....she was in fact the girl Blaine had been holding hands with in my dream!  For those of you who may be all to familiar with this story and are tired of it, I apologize...for all the rest of you I just wanted to share something that means a lot to me. I also would like to say that I was very lucky to have met Banasy (Who has her own April sorrows) and she has become one of the, if not the best friend I have ever had.  For all the sorrows that April has brought me and many others, I will not be posting at all for the entire month (To some this will probably bring joy)....I have always appreciated all of the kind words you have given me over the years...

RockandRollFan,

I think that somehow, in some strange way, you and the kids that you speak of are blessed by some sort of connection.

Truth is often stranger than fiction.  And it seems as though there is another coincidence, very small.  You mentioned that his girlfriend was from Woodland Park.  As it turns out, I have a former co-worker who lived in WP at that time who I have always kept in contact with, and her son (who is alive, well, and healthy) was 17 years old back in 2001.  And he was going thru the trauma of his parents splitting up at that time.  I'd rather not mention his first name (as it is very unique and certainly would identify him).  From what I hear, WP is a very small town, so he probably knew several of the kids you've mentioned.

Your dream is a blessing...lets you continue to know that you are "connected".   :)

Thanks LyricBoy....I appreciate your thoughts :)

Wow, so much tragedy in such a short time...

You will be in my prayers RRFan, and we will miss you.

I will miss you RR.Your in my prayers. :)


Howard