We Still Miss You Dustin

I grabbed this picture off my niece's myspace site. Yesterday was the 6th anniversary of my nephew's (her brother's) death. All my pictures I have of him are not on the computer and so I resort to this one. He died in a skiing accident while on a church trip to Colorado. His mother(my sister), father and older sister were there along with several other families. Dustin was off on the bunny trail with an adult chaperone who knows his family quite well and who is totally responsible....so when the call came to my sis and her hubby who were off on a much more difficult slope there was an accident....they never dreamed what they would have to encounter once they arrived at the ski hospital. Dustin had went out of control on the slopes, got turned around, and hit a tree. I cannot begin to imagine what my sister went through in those next hours, much less each and every day afterwards to now. I know that Dustin is loved and remembered by our family. He was a little man of God. He had a heart of gold and a desire to live right. At 11 years of age, Dustin had the faith of a mustard seed and it showed.

Dan, my brother-in-law and Dustin's father, decided this year to return to the slope in Colorado. I'm not sure what or why he decided as I never spoke to him about this but I knew he was going.
So yesterday evening, I decided to text my niece to let her know I was thinking of them and asked if she had heard from her father. A few minutes later my phone rang and looking over I saw it was my niece calling....I answered but it wasn't Lindsay's voice on the other end...it was Dan's. He could tell I was confused and explained he had taken Lindsay's phone as his was on the blink...I apologized as I knew that day was very special and sacred to him....but he had such a calmness around him repeating to me and assuring me it was ok. I asked if he was up there and was he ok....he said it was good. He just wanted to let me know he had received the message meant for Lindsay and appreciated it. We hung up after that...I can't tell you how much I cried last night. It had been building all week thinking of this week and how it's affected my sister and her family.

My own life has some quirks and turns I've been dealing with....but yesterday, I realized just how small my issues were. January will be over soon....and I'll look forward to springtime.