Samantha Kaitlin Colwell   04/03/91-11/20/04 "Samie". She was an inspiration to so many and touched more lives than I will ever know. She would lite up a room when she entered it. If you were feeling down, she would pick you up. In her short life time, she loved sports.  She loved Ohio State football. She played soccer and baseball. She was a beautiful cheerleader as well.  
Samie went to Emmanuel Christian School all of her life up until her 8th grade and last. She got to go to Northridge school, where she got to go to one school dance, a dream of hers.
Samie wanted to be a missionary when she grew up. I could never be a missionary, but now that I have learned to live a "new Normal", I would love to create a foundation.   A foundation with a mission to help others.  I would love the foundation building to be in the shape of an " S " , with 13 rooms (she was 13 at her time of death), to help 13 different categories of people in need. I have a great neighbor(and her son) that would love to go on a mission to another country, I would love to raise the money to send them. Samie can not go, but they could go in her place. It is an awesome idea. I, myself do not know how to get this started. But I will not give up on these dreams to carry on Samie's name.
Her death destroyed me for awhile. I had no understanding how in the world her life could have ended so abruptly. She went to stay all night with a friend, and I had the mother to mother talk with the parent of her friend. One of our discussions was that my daughter was not to be in cars with teenagers. I just didn't feel that it was safe. Well, this lady had something to do, so she asked a teenager to take our daughters to get something to eat, against my orders. My daughter was the only one injured, killed in this accident. I will never ever forget that dreaded phone call to get to the hospital with no explanation except that there was an accident. My heart stopped beating in a normal rhythm that day. Careflight was grounded due to the weather. So she was at our local hospital. I arrived at the hospital that evening, to get the news and to see my daughter lying in that ER with tubes all around her.  I watched her go into cardiac arrest, I watched them bring her back. I sat in the waiting room while she went thru surgery with every beat of my heart getting weaker. She was on life support as we sat by her side, with non stop praying. She then had to be care flighted to Children's Medical Hospital in Dayton Ohio.      Unbeknown to me, it was to see a neurologist, to diagnose that she was brain dead. There was no more that could be done for her.  At this point, we had to chose a time to pull the life support.  This was the most hardest decision that I have ever had to make. One that will never fade. She had a funeral like no other. Hundreds of people and escorted by our local city and county police. She was known by so many people in our town. 
We do have a candlelight vidual every year on her date of death and at the location that took her life. Samie was a praise dancer and so we play the last song, which was her favorite praise dance to this song at the memorial, "I can only Imagine", we say a prayer and light candles. Then we release 99 pink balloons to soar up to her.
Thank you for listening to my story. And I hope that I can inspire some people that need a lift.