Barbara Lawlor, Nederland.  Cindy Weaver, of Nederland, was walking up to her house after a trip to the grocery store when a friend came to meet her. From the look on her friend's face, Cindy knew something was terribly wrong.

It was more than terrible. It was unthinkable, impossible and unbearable. Cindy's daughter Chloe had been struck by a vehicle while she was riding her bike in Alamosa. She did not survive the traumatic injuries.

It was Sunday, October 24, 2010 and from that day on, Cindy felt like she was walking in someone else's skin. She, her husband Herm, her son Dillon and her daughter Hope, would become involved in a spiritual, emotional and physical quest to find themselves, each other and Chloe again.

One of Cindy's first steps out of the black hole of grief was to record her feelings and thoughts every day, the pain that held her hostage had to be spewed out, to be written down, to be expunged into the light where she could examine it and find a way to walk in this world in its presence.

She also knew she had to find a way to speak with Chloe's friends, to the neighbors and members of the Nederland community who had grown to love the tall, kind, funny, talented and compassionate woman that Chloe had become. Grief gave way to understanding which led to enlightenment and finally a composure, a sense of herself and the new Chloe in spirit. But Cindy was not finished. It was her job to turn her notes on her journey into a book, to share the wisdom she had gleaned from her years of searching for communication with her daughter.

Chloe was born on May 16, 1990 in Canton, Ohio. The family moved to Nederland in July of 2006 and in that two years, Chloe had become a light of goodness at Nederland High School. She participated in sports and soon was the major cheerleader for the teams she joined, especially the basketball team who looked to her as a leader. After graduating in 2008, Chloe worked and had close friends at the B & F Grocery in Nederland. People loved to get in her line, to be greeted by that sincere smile.

Moving on in life, Chloe attended Hesston College in Hesston, KS and moved to Alamosa in August of 2010 to begin a year of Mennonite Voluntary Service. She loved animals, cared for horses, went camping, worked in gardens and traveled internationally. Like her family, Chloe enjoyed music and was a budding singer and songwriter.

She loved animals and bad jokes and was her own person, caring about others but not allowing them to change who she was.

When she died, the community shared in the family's grief, which Cindy knew would last a lifetime.

"Chloe, where are you?" she sobbed after the memorial service. She began walking into the woods, along paths she and Chloe had walked together. Cindy knew that she had to remain true to her personal grieving process and that there was no "should" in the process.

In the beginning, the family members became each other's caretakers: whenever one was needed, they would become the support for the other. And Cindy wrote. She never had the intention of writing a book, but she realized that by getting down in words helped to get it all out. Sometimes during this period Cindy needed to be with people and other times she wanted nothing to do with them.

On the day of Chloe's funeral, Dillon received an email from one of his basketball teammates saying there was no coach for the upcoming season. Everyone knew basketball was his first love. He looked at his dad, and Herm agreed to do it. Cindy had the choice of going home to a dark house or going to the gym where it was bright and noisy and filled with teens and parents.

"The boys on the team became such a support for us," remembers Cindy. Hope coached a JV team and then began working with the Open Sky Wilderness Therapy. Cindy took eight weeks off and then returned to her teaching job where the students had not known Chloe; and she didn't bring her daughter into the classroom.

The pain was becoming less sharp. There was a new shift, a feeling of letting go. Herm changed jobs working emergenetics with corporations and schools. It is a tool that measures the thinking and learning performance, a way to help people understand each other.  He leads retreats for companies, often in Rollinsville.

"We soon became the four Musketeers," says Cindy. "We did everything together, wouldn't leave each other's sights. In the midst of deep darkness and tragedy, we learned to open ourselves up to our joy, one doesn't have to exist without the other. You can have a joyous life and feel your heart hurting at the same time."

On Valentine's Day, Cindy had a dream that Chloe brought her and Herm an orange-yellow rose, it was Chloe's favorite color. That day she went to work and a boy came up behind her with the same color rose. "It was a message from Chloe."

Herm and Chloe had written a song together and Herm has been in the process of recording the song with his voice and hers. He had found her singing on her lap top shortly after she died. Cindy said she couldn't listen to it, but Herm told her it was all right, "that he felt this peace come over him."

In 2006, the Weavers moved out of Nederland to their ranch off Hwy. 72, a large pasture for their horses and a barn, a place where Cindy finds peace.

She finished her book last fall and published it in August, filling it with the despair and with the antidote to despair, painting a picture of sorrow so severe that breathing hurts and so filled with joy that she knows her tears will end

"Losing my Breath, From Loss to Transformation" is now available on Amazon or from Blue Owl Bookstore.