Hearing that your daughter is dead should be the worst experience a parent faces. But somehow life shuts down your brain and a fog covers your vision the minute you hear that report. Undoubtedly this is a means to cope with the abhorrent news without going completely insane yourself.

That merciful fog lifts entirely though when faced with choosing a casket. If I was asked, I would say that was definitely the worst day of my life. How could I select a box that would house my baby and close her off from me for eternity? Just knowing we would never get to see Laura again completely dropped me to my knees, and only the strength of my courageous son kept me from totally remaining collapsed on the floor.

Suicides aren’t treated with the same degree of haste that a hospital death would enjoy. It took two long days to get her body released from the medical examiner’s office and sent to the funeral home. Only because Laura had arranged her death like she did her life, with great planning and careful attention to what her survivors would face, did we even get her back that quickly.

But is time to talk about Craig, our incredible, strong, loving, devoted son. Not only did he face telling his boys, Laura’s nephews with whom she was so close and who loved her so devotedly, that she was dead, he also had parents in complete despair. But most importantly, he lost his sister.

How Craig managed to write and deliver her eulogy not only amazed us, but also the congregation of friends and relatives who gave us their love on a hot Saturday of Labor Day weekend. What he wrote was so beautiful, and such a tribute to his sister and their love that it needs to be included here:

I’m Craig. I had the honor of being Laura’s big brother. She is my only sibling. I know what you’re thinking….obviously, she got all the looks. And you’re right.  She was beautiful. And guess what…she also got the brains too. She was so smart, and athletic and musically talented, artistic, and compassionate. And I could go on and on and still miss something that describes her.

Laura and I were close…in many definitions of that word. First of all, we were only 10 months apart in age – I’ve been married for almost 19 years and I still can’t figure out how our Mom did this. But, my favorite two months of the year were January and February when were the same age! We were so close in age that we were often mistaken for twins. (In fact, at one point, thanks to the unfortunate unisex chili bowl hairstyle in the 70s, we were mistaken for twin boys.) My mom has told us many times through the years that she didn’t need to arrange play dates, didn’t even know what a playgroup was because she had provided us with a best friend by having us so close together. And she was right. We were. I don’t have a childhood memory that doesn’t include my sister. (And apparently not a picture either, which we discovered after going through old pictures. We found few individual pictures this week to make her slideshow.)  We had one name — CraigandLaura –when people would ever mention one of us the mentioned both.  And it was great to be an almost-twin. We had the same friends and did everything at the same time. Because she could sometimes be a little shy, she went along with me for everything. I never really thought anything about it because I didn’t ever know differently. She was like an extension of me. I’ve had an epiphany this week that the reason she and LeAnn were able to be such good friends is they shared a common bond (or support group) that comes from both having lived with me!

Our childhood was great. She and I played outside until dark catching fireflies. We ate popsicles with neighbors, ran between houses with friends, played soccer and kickball for hours in the yard. We took road trips in a brown van with carpet all the way around it – laying on a big bed in the back and singing Kenny Rogers and Larry Gatlin. We played in San Antonio with great friends when my Aunt Carolanne lived there, and swam in the lake in Knoxville at my Aunt Donna’s house. It was a normal, apple-pie Americana childhood. She was adorable and happy. She was successful in school and well behaved. My mother constantly had to promise our teachers if they would endure having me, she would reward them the next year with Laura. She was that perfect.

Later, we always loved watching her play volleyball and basketball. Not only because she was good, but also because she was suddenly able to be so aggressive and competitive. It was amazing and fun to see her develop leadership and self-confidence and happiness through athletics.

Her level of capability and determination also later extended to playing the French horn. First of all, it’s a beautiful instrument. But second of all, she was really good at it. I’ve been amazed this week by all of the messages and stories that have been sent to me by our high school friends who fondly remember and mention specifics about her talent and beauty and humor. Although she lost contact through the years with many people, I’m comforted by the way that so many people remember her and how her death has impacted them too.

After high school, Laura took the long and winding road through college. It had a few detours and we tried one time recently to piece together in order the cities she lived in. Unlike me who my wife refers to as “Mr. One Mile Radius,” Laura left Dallas in 1991 and really didn’t move back until this summer. She lived through the years in Austin, Houston, College Station, Oklahoma City, and Japan. And some of those places she lived multiple times at different points. I am amazed to meet the 14 friends who drove in from several of these cities, and we had a great time last night after the visitation listening to the stories of their adventures with Laura through the years. Many of them were her roommates at different times. They told me when and where they lived with her, and I promise you we need to see a family tree of roommates to piece it together. She worked for the Gap throughout a lot of those years. She was the hardest working manager they ever had. Wherever she moved, there was a Gap location there and she transferred with them. Sometimes she moved because they asked her too. Eventually, she grew tired of retail management, like many people do. But I still miss her family discount!

It’s really ironic to think now that she ever worked at the Gap because she so loved Goodwill and other thrift stores. I’m not sure she now owns any items of any kind that didn’t come from a second-hand store. And she found treasures at Goodwill that no one else could ever find. She would walk in with a beautiful coat or boots or any other item of clothing and it would look new and beautiful, and she would tell us she spent $2 on it at Goodwill. It would be the same things we all pay much more for in a retail store. And here we thought a good deal was shopping at Marshall’s!

She finally settled in Austin and spent, at least, the last 15 years there. She loved Austin and everything about it. She embraced the, “Keep Austin Weird,” slogan. In fact, at one time she told that she didn’t me to ever move there because they didn’t need any more people like me there! (conservative and traditional.) I wasn’t sure if I should be offended or not! But that tells you a lot about her because she had no reservations about saying what was on her mind. In many ways, I admire that and I’m even slightly jealous. Laura was blessed with a comfort in not needing to conform or worry about being politically correct. She enjoyed a certain freedom that comes from not being tied to the filters we all use for everyday conversation. Austin also embraced her and she felt the freest to be who she was and live her lifestyle there without worry about judgment. On behalf of my family, I want to thank all of her friends here today who put up with her quirks and loved her as much as we did. I know it is because of all of you that we had her as long as we did, and I know she loved you. There are so many of you that I want to personally thank, but I can’t walk away from this opportunity to publicly thank Alison who was her lifeline and best friend for so long beginning back in the College Station days and Mandi who was her roommate for some of the best years of her life, and some of the best years that we had with her too. Thank you.

I need to move on because I know when you think of Laura, you can’t help but immediately think of cats. Really her compassion for all animals, but cats are on a whole other level for her. In fact, when we told my boys this week about her death, their first question was, “What about her cats?” It just defines her. She told Sue recently she was turning into that cliché of a single 40-year old lady with all the stray cats. But really that has been a life-long calling for her. I will never forget when she was young, maybe 10 or 11, and she came riding home on her bike in tears because she had seen a car stop and drop a kitten on the side of the street in our neighborhood. She had immediately gotten off her bike and picked up the kitten and put it under some bushes in a nearby yard. By the time she got home, she was a wreck with the thought that the kitten would wander off and she was begging and crying for us to go back and bring it home. Of course, my parents got in the car with her and went and got the kitten who she named Nibbles and who quickly became a huge part of our family. Nibbles wasn’t the only stray or orphan cat she adopted and loved. There were many more in her life through the years, and I think she fed every stray cat in Austin. In fact, I have one at home even now who was a kitten from a stray mother cat who had a litter in her closet. If you’ve known her as an adult, you obviously would have known Ralphie and Camper too. And Winchell, and some others whose names I’ve forgotten right now.

Although I call them cats, they were children to her. We watched in awe recently as she nursed Camper back to health from a point in which most anyone else would have said was hopeless. And I’m talking heroic, extreme nursing…she would have probably made a great reality TV show. She deeply grieved the loss of Ralphie last year, and I can’t fathom what she was dealing with this past week since Camper has been missing. Allison, please thank your friend Susan who is taking Wyatt and Lily back to Austin. And I promise you now I won’t see a stray cat again without thinking of her.

After over 20 years of living away, Laura had moved back to Dallas this summer. Trust me I never thought it would happen. But she did. She had been teaching at a really tough school in Austin and needed a fresh start. She also planned to go to grad school to get a master’s degree in counseling. With her background, she would have been such a great counselor. We had the best summer with her and I’m so thankful now for it. Despite the major change, she seemed happy. She loved swimming or going to a movie with us, or just hanging out on the floor at my house with my boys. She was the best aunt they could ever ask for and they worshiped her. She was always bringing them little presents and finding new games to play with them. She would call us on a weekend, and say “I’ll come play with the boys so you can run your errands.” It was beautiful to watch. She also recently had us over for dinner and had tried to make such a great meal, but she didn’t know how to use the gas grill. I showed her how which isn’t saying much because I’m not really good at grilling either. But I’ll always treasure that memory now.

I thought it was the start of something good for us, and I was really looking forward to the years ahead for us to be with her much more. She was living here with Sue and John, our closest family friends…which isn’t actually doing our relationship justice because they are so much for than friends – truly family – to us. Sue and John are gone more than they are home, so it worked perfectly for Laura. She made it her new home…so much that she rearranged or reorganized every part of their house. Sue is still looking for things that used to be easy to find in a certain drawer! If you know Laura, this doesn’t surprise you, because she has the same OCD gene for organizing and neatness that I have too. Although from hearing the stories, I think she definitely had it to a greater extent. She would have been a fantastic Container Store employee, and she really loved her label maker!

Although I want to stay up here all day and talk about my sister, I don’t want to leave without a chance to remind everyone here that someone else loves you and would miss you if you were gone. I would give anything to tell Laura that again. But because I can’t, please intervene in the life of someone who needs you. All the medicine in the world sometimes is not enough. Depression is real and we know that it can cloud judgment and block the light of the world. I never want to go through this again, and I don’t want you to have to either. I’m wearing a bracelet today from my best friend, Amberly, who is also like a sister to me. It’s for suicide prevention with their website listed on it, imalive.org. And I love it. Let’s be alive. On behalf of my family, thank you for loving us and supporting us this week. We have been nearly incapacitated with grief, and it won’t end today, but your care is helping us move forward. Thank you.

What happens next is another heart-breaking lesson when your child dies.