Beyond keeping the memory of my dear friend alive, one of the things that I hope this blog will do in the future is help other people who may be facing similar situations. I will never forget how I felt when Kell was murdered. The sadness, anger, disbelief, and pain were overwhelming. I vividly remember constantly feeling lost and hopeless—blaming myself, blaming others around me, even blaming Kelly-Anne herself. These emotions were always there, but it was only when life began to return to normal, and when I began discovering that my normal was forever altered, that they became completely overwhelming.

I can remember wondering how I would ever go on without Kell? How could I possibly be expected to live a normal life again when something so tragic happened? I can remember hours spent in front of my computer desperately hoping that I might find a resource to help me. I knew there were grief counselors and therapists, but they weren’t going to change what happened—no one could bring Kell back. What I was really searching for was a person going through the same thing I was. I think I probably googled thousands of things ranging from “coping with murder” to “how do you deal with the loss of your best friend” and couldn’t find anything that I was really looking for.

I hope this website might be that resource for others. I hope that through my writings I will show that though Kelly-Anne is something that can never be replaced, the pain of the loss will eventually subside somewhat. At first, the grief is so completely overwhelming you can’t begin to understand how your life will ever go on. I vividly remember, maybe a few weeks after Kell was killed, my dad telling me that one day my pain won’t be as raw as it is now. Though he was absolutely right, it actually made me feel worse. If I accepted that the pain wouldn’t always be this bad it might actually mean I was accepting that she really was never coming back. And that, of course, was something I couldn’t really accept.

I could never really find what I was searching for. I wanted someone to tell me what it was like coping with murder. I understood losing people because of illness and tragic accidents, but murder was a completely different ball game. How could someone have decided to take her life? Why should she have suffered such a horrendous fate? Did she know exactly how much she was loved even though none of us got to say goodbye? How could I have spent time with someone who was capable of killing another human being?

Don’t get me wrong, I still don’t have answers to most of these questions, but I have learned to deal with them day by day.