If you read my book you know a bit about my past. My dad is nowhere to be found. In fact, he could be dead and I wouldn't know it? I did not realize how much I counted on my baby brother and our relationship until he was killed in a car accident in 1997. Ironic how that year started out with my book coming out, a fabulous 20 city tour, more national TV and magazine coverage than I could have ever imagined. Life was really rolling along, my message was truly being heard.

The phone rings while I am in Tampa getting ready to work on video/infomercial with my dear friend Paula and all our NFOF members in Tampa--my brother is dead, my mom is on her way to northern Michigan--my sister and my family and I need to get up north ASAP. I can not give you words for how devastating that news was. No one wanted me to drive 6- 7 hours back to Panama City that night--so I stayed, I did what I had to do that morning and left to drive back where my family was all piling in my Z-28 Camero and 20 some hours later we arrived in Traverse City, MI.

His wife to be I had never met. His two kids I had yet to meet. I am staying at his house and he is not there. I know no one except my side of the family. Was it awkward? Absolutely!!! My maid of honor and long time dear friend Rhonda, was by my side. It was a good thing because mother nature was upon me and my typical 28 day cycle turned into literally almost bleeding to death--well let's just say I had so low of a blood count I could barely function. I crashed hard..emotionally, physically.

From August 22nd until the first of the new year 1998--I can not tell you what I did, how I felt. Numb and in shock.
The video infomercial project folded in the worse possible way--I was not working out--YES I gain some fat back.

I was in this sort of stuper for a long time.......I started working out again in Jan. 1998--but with low blood count it was hard. I did find some emotional relief-but I had the informercial people breathing down my back, telling me I had to cut my nails, loose 25 pounds, do this ....do that......Geez they did not even send me a freaking sympathy card--to make matters worse--we were moving again----the pain, the void, kept growing..sure I was working out, but my eating behavior had slowly slipped. The one thing I can say is that I never completely quit working out. This round, it did not seem to be enough.

Should I have gotten some grief counceling? YOU BETCHA? Have I yet? NOT YET--after five plus years and missing my brother, blaming God, being very angry..missing my brother even more--still working out, still teachng, but hurting inside the whole time---

WE FINALLY LEAVE THE MILITARY LIFE--we get roots, buy a house, kids make friends-open up New Face--life is really going well--YET .....I am sooo sad inside and the sadness is eating me alive. I needed a sign, I needed to know it was okay to get through the pain and have some closure. I guess I thought I had done that, yet the pounds put on after Darrin died were not going away--a sign for me that I was not dealing with his death--at least not in a healthy way.

Out of the blue, my massage therapist, my friend, my mentor of sorts, Paul says, " Dee have you gone to his grave and just sat down and talked to him, gotten anything and everything out--YOU NEED some closure-have you done that?" Well I have gone to the cememtary, with flowers, I have put them in vase--I have even decorated the heart shaped metal wreath-and then just left. NO I had not just pulled up some grass and stayed for a while.

So this past weekend that was my mission. I dreaded it, yet could not wait for the time to come--I cried on and off all week about the thoughts of it --yet drove up there alone to do this task and hoped something would happen to help me emotionally.

Beautiful sunny Traverse City day! If you have never been to the Grand Traverse Bay area you are missing a really neat little part of our world. I had just finished lunch with my dear friend and banker Lisa, and was ready to pull up the grass by my borthers grave. I really couldn't talk out loud --it just felt a bit weird--so I did what any real writer does--I got out my pen and pad and wrote the things I have never said to my only brother...

... I miss you sooo much.......I am sooo sorry for the bad influences I had on you in your life--(you see my brother was going 80 miles an hour when car broadsided him--he had blood alcohol level way over the limit)---guess who drink with him his very first time?? yeah--it was his big sister--me.......I am so sorry I never called him back that week before leaving for Tampa--(you see he called me twice and I always call him right back..but not that week--I had vowed once I got to Tampa I would call him)---instead I got the call about his crash. I thanked him for being such a killer person despite his own pain and cross to bare---then...the tears started rolling...I was praying for a sign, a sense of peace, an out pouring of grief----JUST SOMETHING......

Up drives an SUV, parks behind mine--I felt awkward because these people seemed to be coming towards me and I was crying and all sprawled out on the grass--I prayed they were going a few sites down not right next to my brother and I--I looked back once more as they got closer---it was my borther's children Autumn and Jacob and my brohter's wife-to-be Melanie! I burst into hysterical sobs--I was over whelmed---they were suppose to be in Detroit and not even in the city let alone here at the cemetary-

-I thought did my mom call them? my sister? how did they know? we all hugged and cried and cried and hugged--when I asked how, why? Melanie just said " we took a chance you might be here, I just couldn't leave today without us seeing you !" "I did not know where and when you might come--we just stopped by to see."

Is there a God....? YOU BETCHA! WAS THIS MY SIGN? overwhelmingly .....YES DEE! We cried and hugged and the kids asked me what I was writing so I read it to them ---all of it. Autumn (now 7) asked if she could write something to her dad..and I was DEE-lighted to pass the pen and pad her way--she wrote the following ...

I love you dad and love you, love and miss you--then she drew pictures of all of us flying kits and signed it
To: Ant Dee-love Autumn. We did not say much more...we did not have to.....if I could not see my brother again, I can tell you honestly and completely --seeing my necie and nephew and his wife-to-be at that very moment, truly was the next best thing--

it was my sign-

it is a huge step in my healing and closure.

There aren't words for how I felt as we all walked back to our cars together--hugging--and I said thank you to them all at least a million times-

-I cried in a happy, almost peaceful way all the way back to Grand Rapids and knew this story I had to share with as many people as I possibly could. I started with my mom and sister, my husband and my own sons, with my New Face of fitness family as soon as I see them and with YOU!

HOPE is a real thing. GOD IS REAL AND HE IS ALIVE. Though I was angry and mad, sad and void, though I do not understand why my brother is not on this earth.
I know he was there with me June 20 at the cemetary. His kids and his soulmate were my sign. I can own that moment and that memory and those wonderful feelings for the rest of my life. I am soo grateful and thankful for that--finally........some peace. For those of you who have lost someone you loved before their time or before YOU thought it was their time--I share this with you from my heart and my soul-----since I came back from the cemetary I have not felt the addictive compulsive drive to hit the refrigerator---I honestly feel I have some thing special to help me accept and move on. I know Darrin would want me to--get busy living! Love, Dee