Breaking Open Your Spirit

Eric died in the motorcycle crash, just 30 minutes from the airport where he would have boarded the plane to come home. "The police officer that attended the scene of the crash said, 'He was traveling near Mount Cook, on a dry, straight stretch of road, with an incredible view of the snowcapped mountains. As near as we can determine, he must have had his eyes on the distant view when he drifted into the ditch,'" Glen says in Broken Open.

Connie says she can remember the agony in Glen's face when he told her the news. "I remember saying to him, 'I don't know how to do this grief thing,'" she says. "And he said to me: 'Well, I don't know how to do it either. But one thing I do know is we must do it well for Ryan, our son, and for Katie, our daughter, because we are the only models they have.'"

Glen told Connie there were two paths they could take—despair or hope. "[He said], 'That doesn't look very welcoming down there, so I'm going to the place of hope,'" Connie says. "And I said, 'I'm coming with you.'"