A little over 24 hours ago my friends sister was murdered by her own husband, in her garage, while her 4 children slept in the house...

I think that I am still waiting to wake up from this nightmare and be grateful that I was only sleeping and it isn't real.  But it is real and I can't seem to wrap my brain around it.  I am one of those people who knows that bad things happen all the time, and that they have to happen to someone, so I never thought I was immune, but I guess I never really expected it to hit so close to home.

I have known my friend M since I was four years old.  I don't remember much about her sister until M and I were reunited in junior high.  M and I were unseperable, we spent most every waking moment together (unless of course we were fighting, we were preteen girls after all!).

M's sister was about 13 years older than we were, so she was an adult and she was married.  When we were 17 she had her first baby, actually twins.  They went to a resort in Missouri for some conference thing and M and I drove up to babysit the twins for them.  And when we left we took the twins with us back to their house in Oklahoma.  M's sister and her husband returned home a few days later.  It was so much fun watching the babies and we both felt so grown up for being trusted with such a hefty task.

I just love M's family so much.  They are the reason I would like to have 4 kids.  It is just so much fun when they all get together.  I haven't seen M's mom since this happened.  She was busy making arrangments and going to the house to get things for the kids.  M's parents are retired and just sold their house so they currently live in a 1 bedroom apartment.  Not really condusive to raising 4 kids.

I didn't sleep well last night.  Everytime I woke up it was all I could think about.  I know basically what happened and I kept picturing it.  And then I would go back to the last time I saw her.  And what a wonderful, caring, loving person she was.  And how are her children going to survive without their mother?  And how will they ever be able to work through the issue that their father murdered her? 

So many questions, so many "what if's".  But she is gone and now somehow we have to pick up the peices and carry on.  I have to be there for M.  I have to be strong for her as she completely falls apart because she will never see her sister again.  And I have to pray that God will be there in the middle of this tragedy.  That He will comfort this family when they feel like they cannot go on.