to see the body. so they just brought me back to a separate room and gave me her purse, which was horrible, even the sight of it. it smelled like gasoline. it was dirty. everything inside was snapped. they said the purse was found next to the body and just the way it smelled, the way it looked, that that s what happened to whitney. and it was really hard. newell was making arrangements to fly back from mississippi. colleen s pastor offered to drive her to indiana. five hours away. when you got to the hospital, if this were a movie, the mother or the father would have walked in and said, i know she s gone, but take me to see my little girl. you know, i have a beautiful picture of whitney in my head. i want i didn t yes. i keep stuff in my head.
did they put pictures of some of the victims up on a projection screen at the front of the room? uh-huh. do you remember seeing whitney cerak s photo go up? oh, yeah. you know, we saw all of them. did anything register with you when you looked at her picture? no. not at all. it was at the memorial service that the two families met for the first time. i felt a tap on my shoulder, and i turned around and it was don van ryn. i introduced myself as laura s father and just let him know how we felt. how much compassion we had for his family and how we were praying for them. i said, don, i want you to know i m praying for your daughter. i m very thankful for the progress she was making. because we were constantly reading the blog, as well. did you keep up with that? i did. i read it pretty much every day. i would get on. at one point, i said, i wonder colleen, how we would handle it if that was our daughter.
she may not have been the best player, but she made the others feel they were. she s already getting her reputation as the funniest girl in heaven. it was humbling, that s what it was. so many people cared enough for our family. we felt so surrounded and loved by so many people. the ceraks buried their daughter on monday, may 1. so much on your mind. i can only imagine. there was a mix-up. you forgot to pick your mom up? in the confusion of all the things, i go, where s mom? and all of a sudden i hear colleen go, uh-oh. that s when she goes, i was supposed to tell you that you had to pick her up. and when you went to apologize to her about not getting her and her missing that burial, she said something it s something that we believe as christians that and i just said, mom, i am so sorry. she said, newell, that s okay. i said, are you sure? she said, yeah, because it s not really whitney anyway.
it begins with two lovely young women whose lives became intertwined forever on a cool spring evening, two years ago. laura van ryn was 22 at the time. her parents, don and suzy, living in caledonia, michigan. laura was the youngest of four children. she had an older sister, lisa and two brothers, kenny and mark. laura and her boyfriend aaron had been dating for three years. everybody knew they d get married. what was she like as a child growing up? mom? happy. giggly, joyful, just loved being where everybody was. she was a lot of fun.v everybod. she was a lot of fun. liked everybody, everybody liked her because she was just real. and genuine. whitney cerak was 18. she grew up in gaylord, michigan, with her parents and her older sister carly. whitney was just an amazing girl.
i know that i couldn t i wanted a picture of whitney who was this beautiful, living, vibrant little girl instead of i would keep that picture in my head as opposed to, you know, a battered body. 50 miles away at parkview hospital, laura s parents and sister were steeling themselves, preparing to see her for the first time since she had been terribly injured in the crash. they had told us at that point, expect to see her in an altered state. she s got tubes coming out everywhere. you know, she s bruised up. she s not going to look like herself. not going to look like herself, right. so when you walked in the room? what did she look like? what did we see? well, a lot of things that were foreign, like machines and tubes, and, really, she was