On May 3oth 2008 Allen West (24) and Justin Bedsole (21) were returning home from Monroeville, Alabama to their home and their wives in Mobile, Alabama. They had worked a long grueling day at a (plant outage) local Pulp Mill. They spoke to their dads at 9:30 pm and were dead at around 9:50pm. The young men had been married for a short time (Allen West 13 months and Justin Bedsole 11 weeks). They were Christian men, all american types, educated, aggressive, loving and playful. This blog will be reviewing emails that were sent and continue to be sent as the family continues in the grief process.



The boys (men) were similar and yet different. Both Quarterbacks, both hard workers, both leaders, both bright, articulate and proud that they had found the love of their life and the Faith that fills the vacuum in the heart of men. I know because I an the father of Allen West and the Father-In-Law of Justin Bedsole. I know because my Family was and is the focus of my life.



That family includes the family that we claim by blood relation and also the family that is linked and tied to each other by Faith. We are all exposed daily to the warrant of death that was issued to all of man kind. For we all die...timing is the only issue. We cannot out think death, or the method and manner that it is served.



I will be posting the emails that started the morning after we found the crushed vehicle that housed our Son, Son in law and the husbands to two beautiful young women.



This is a journey into extreme misery, extreme doubt and then the extreme Faith that holds us and binds us to the promise of tomorrow. A tomorrow that is either here in the physical or on the other side. Many of these writings, (especially early on) are dark and full of pain. Waves of depression that towered higher than any of us ever experienced would crush us. It was as if a sinister hurricane was sitting in the sea of grief and churning these waves up in an effort to push us to the edge of sanity and beyond...