GAC Welcomes Home Brendan!

Friday night was a very special night for my brother and my family. At the Gustavus hockey game, they welcomed Brendan back "home" to school. It was Bren's first time visiting Gustavus since he was there last Spring as a student. My parents and him got there early on so he could chat with old classmates and friends. Tom and I got there with the boys later on, and it was so great to see Bren back with his buddies - laughing and just hanging out. We didn't go into the actual ice arena until right before they spoke about Brendan. When I walked into the arena on the main floor and saw that arena packed with students (all wearing black for the "blackout" against Hamline) wearing bandanas in support of my brother, banners letting Bren know how much he's been missed - my heart melted and my eyes filled up with tears.

This is all for my brother, he has already made an impact on this many people. wow. After hockey warm-ups, right before the national anthem, they spoke about my brother and his accident, and then Bren wheeled out on the ice with his closest gustie buds. The whole arena roared when the saw Bren. At one point while they were waiting for Bren to come out, people chanted "Brendan Loney, Brendan Loney." They honored Bren with a gold jersey with his number 23 - the same ones the team was wearing that night, that he proudly wore throughout the rest of the game. There were a few news channels that wanted to do a story about Brendan, so they agreed. Bren wasn't comfortable being interviewed, but my parents did a great job. To see the WCCO interview - click HERE

All in all, it was a great day for my entire family. I'm not sure if going back to Gustavus made Bren want to go back there and finish or not. Gustavus has been so great to my family during this difficult time. Brendan was blessed to be a student there and I know they will take extra good care of him if he decides to return. I know Bren can do anything he wants to do, and I think he is slowly starting to believe that. It's hard to not dwell on all of the things that could have been for Bren, but there is no reason to do that and I feel like we are all slowly moving forward and looking ahead. As much as it sucks to deal with all of the changes - God doesn't let things like this happen to people who can't deal with it. So even when we all think like we can't get through it, we have trust that God will be there to help guide us.

We finally got Jack to take rides with Brendan at my parent's house. I warned Brendan that once Jack started taking rides, he wouldn't want to stop. Sure enough, Jack kept asking him for more rides once he would get down. ha ha. Think of all of the fun/scary/dangerous things that are going to be done with that wheelchair and my two boys in the future. Uh-Oh!!

Here are some other pics from Friday night: