The day started out much the same.  I went to bed late.  Mike got up with the kids.  I fell back asleep.  The phone rang - two rings, then Mike must have picked up.  Mike walked into the room to see if I was still asleep after the phone conversation had ended.

Today though, he saw that I was not awake and left again.  This same day last year he had something to tell me.

"Chris, are you awake?"
"Ugghh"
"Chris, that was my mom on the phone.  She just heard on the news that N, M, V, M and J were killed in a house fire last night."
"WWWHHHHAATTT???????"
"And M is in jail."
"Oh my god."

I can't believe it's been an entire year since that morning.  We stayed glued to the tv, internet and radio for a few days.  Our faces frozen in shock.  Info came out.  M had a girlfriend, they were broke, he wasn't getting paychecks.  She found out about the girlfriend, tried to hit him with a frying pan and stab him.  He flipped the knife on her, then started a fire and fled the house.  The children died in their sleep, there was no pain, no terror.

He claimed till the very end that he was innocent.  He killed her in self-defense, she set the fire.  The prosecutors claimed otherwise, too many stab wounds for simple self-defense, evidence showed that he set the fire.

A few months later, he hanged himself in his jailcell, still maintaining his innocence, but for all intents and purposes he died a year ago today as well.  His soul if not his body.

I went out with friends last night and successfully kept my mind from keeping a minute by minute play by play of what would have been happening that night.  I did think about it a lot, but I'm grateful that the women that I was with knew nothing about it, so there was no chance of it just coming up in conversation.

Today I'm going to a makeshift memorial with Mel.  Tom and Lucy just arrived to watch the kids, so I've got to go take a shower and get dressed.