Nina Elly Hermes

It always amazes me how quickly life can change the path we're on. We think we know what we'll be doing the next day, week or month, but sometimes something happens that spins us off in a totally different direction. We thought we knew where we would be for Thanksgiving, but it turned out quite differently.

Nina last year at Christmas

For those of you who don't know Sam's family he has a sister, Stephanie, who has three children. Their middle child, Nina, has been bravely battling cancer for two years. When we were out last Christmas she was in remission and we were all praying for the best. Just after the holidays, though, they found that the cancer had returned.

On the evening of November 15th, (the Thursday before Thanksgiving) we received an email from Sam's parents saying that Nina was not doing well and was not expected to make it. We made plans right away to go to Virginia to help out in whatever way we could, even if just for moral support. We had just bought our tickets, when we found out that she had already passed away. She was only 8 years old. I wish I could have known Nina better. She seemed so sweet and wise for her age.

As you can imagine this has been a really hard time for the whole family. We wanted to be there to support Stephanie and Patrick, so we flew out on Sunday morning. Although we felt incredibly helpless once we were there, because there was nothing we could do to change the situation. Nothing we could say to make it better. We were just so sad for the loss of Nina. The funeral was Tuesday. Nina loved the color red, so they asked that everyone wear red to the funeral. It was really beautiful to see so much red in honor of such a special little girl. Sam's dad gave a very loving eulogy. Nina will certainly be missed.

It was a difficult place to be in this time. The real reason we were there was always on our minds, but we felt so helpless to do anything and the family really just needed their space. Since we were there for 10 days we tried to enjoy the time we had with both of our families.

We just returned home and I wanted to update this blog. I'll do a post later about Thanksgiving and our time spent with family.