A Tragic Death in the Family

Please do not think I have abandoned you or the blogs that I follow. It has taken me some time to write this post.

As most of my followers know, I have two older brothers. I am so saddened and heart-broken to tell you that on Saturday, July 2nd, 2011 my brother Christopher, aged 38 died suddenly after routine knee surgery. We found out that it was a pulmonary embolism after his autopsy.

He leaves behind his wife, Diane (33 years old), his beautiful son Evangelos (Evan - 2 years old) and a baby boy (Bryce) that will be born in December.

His death was so sudden and shocking. His funeral and burial took place in the days following his death and I can honestly say that the images of my parents faces and his wife's grief were the worst things I have ever seen in my life.

As you know, we are a very strong family and there were hundreds of people who came to his visitation and funeral. We are trying to adjust to the new reality of our lives without him as best as we can. Luckily, his wife and I are like sisters ourselves so we have been with each other since this happened. In fact, at around noon, I will go see her today to try to get her out of her house. She is having a hard time getting out but I know my brother would want her to be strong for his children. As simple as this sounds I know my brother would never in a million years want to leave his wife and his children.

I will try in the up-coming weeks to share more about how we have been doing as I would like to document as much as I can to share with my own children my memories of their amazing uncle.

I am now 15 weeks pregnant with the twins and they and my son Stathis are the reasons why I am able to get out of bed in the morning. I have decided that one of the twins will be named after him - we are still waiting on gender - but their is a Christopher or a Christina in my belly...

Please let your loved ones know how much they mean to you...God Bless