A collective gasp and anguish displayed tears rolled down everyone cheeks disbelief shock anger and a deep sadness i will never forget. every one was speechless. i only could only see Shawnie who quietly accepted this decision two officers were there to take her in and helped her remove all her jewelry before booking her. i can only imagine what have been going thru her mind at this time. the only words she could utter was " NO" when asked if she wanted to say her goodbyes. She never looked back once after the verdict was read, and even though i wanted more than anything to hold her so closely one more time. I understood why. it would have been too much heartache at once to face. so without a word or a glance she was gone. her lawyer gathered us all up outside the courtroom we all numbly followed him and gathered in circle outside, i remembered what she told me earlier that morning so before the lawyer spoke up i began to speak. i told them that she told them all not to be sad and even though this was not the miracle we wanted it was a miracle nonetheless, now i was crying and my voice was cracking and concluded by saying how this had actually saved her life because of the person she had now become, i ended it by saying how much i was going to miss her. The lawyer spoke up and mentioned that she might be eligible too be released in six months which helped a little and the pastor prayed and we all left. Two her AA friends really reached out to me and were very instrumental in helping me in the short time after this day, they may never fully understand but they were angels from heaven. My son Bryan was there and we drove home together i don't even recall if we spoke and what was said, i literally was reeling beyond belief. No indictment no judgement but to this day every one seemed to pick up the pieces of there lives so much more easily than i did, my condition was actually the lowest and most devastating thing i have ever walked thru. After seeing all those tear filled eyes i thought we had an instant support group, but that has not really happened. All by God's design. It took me well over a month to find some peace an acceptance in any small measure. i went to a lot AA meetings at first and poured an poured my heart out everywhere to everyone i saw this ended up not being fruitful all very few people reached out to me, also God's Design. I felt so alone and to make matters even more difficult my princess of course was even more devastated than me. the hardest thing is to see her in such pain and anguish and there nothing i could do about it. I took Her son Kobe to see her that Sunday and all that was displayed was the sobbing and crying of both her and Kobe. i wanted to comfort both of them and hold them both closer and closer, I was not even able to touch her and she initially also was told she could not even touch Kobe either. i was able to hold Kobe but nothing i did could alleviate the pain he must have been feeling that day.