but for now, at least she was alive. whitney s mom was hoping and praying that her daughter had also survived. and then the phone rang. right. coming up difficult news about whitney and something puzzling about laura. we didn t recognize the shoes. we thought she must have been wearing someone else s shoes. a twist of fate continues in a moment. what makes the sleep number store different?
i just don t know how strong a parent i am. would i be able to handle taking care of a daughter in a serious accident knowing that maybe she s going to be a vegetable for the rest of her life. i ll be honest with you. at that point we just said we re thankful that whitney s gone and that the van ryns are strong enough to deal with the situation that they re dealing with. he couldn t know at the time how deeply ironic his words actually were. coming up laura begins to wake up. her boyfriend looked at her eyes and said the color appears different. when a twist of fate continues. [ male announcer ] talking a big game about your engine is one thing. having a proven history that can back it all up is a whole other story. unsurpassed torque. incredible towing. legendary cummins engines.
there they met the university official who had identified whitney s body. he s a good friend of ours. we thanked him for what he had done, and my heart was just praying for him for him not to have it hurt too much. we felt bad that he was the one that had those visions in his head. and no questions about what did you see no. how was she, nothing? no. i never even had an inkling of even asking him anything like that. i just felt really bad that he had to do that. we grieve, and we mourn. laura s family left her bedside for a few hours to attend the service. what do you remember about that memorial service? powerful. the place was packed. one of the most powerful speeches came from whitney s father. the lord jesus excite has her in his presence right now and that one day we ll see her again.
you know, we had been talking to her all along and singing to her and reading to her with, you know, nothing coming back but just, you know, praying that she heard us. and when she said that, it was like you said this urge to, okay, let s keep this going. even as laura s family celebrated her slow return, whitney s family was trying to restart their lives. parents newell and colleen returned to a home that would never be the same, leaving their other daughter, carly, behind at taylor university for the first time since the accident. at that moment, i remembered when i was in mississippi and carly had called me. and i just remember how helpless i felt. and those feelings all came up again. at that point leaving her again because i just felt helpless to leave her there. you two go back home and you got to get back to your lives. you went back to work. yep.
whitney s family drove down from michigan to attend. on the highway you passed the scene of the accident. only this time there are five crosses on the side of the road. what did you do? i just remember getting out and, you know, looking at it. you could see the big crevices in the median that had been torn up by the truck coming across. and it was it was just one of those sombering times where you just kind of sit there and just the reality of it was there. did you pray together then? yes, we did. i remember getting out and heading over there, and we all put our arms around each other and just stood there looking at that memorial. someone had put together an array of crosses, five crosses. and it was just it was, it was just a very sobering time. before the service, they had dinner at the home of the university s president.