In Loving Memory of Uncle Scott McLaws

Sunday November 26, 2017 was one if not the worst day of our lives. It was a beautiful sabbath morning and we were going about our usual Sunday things. We had eaten breakfast all together (Bridget was home from Thanksgiving) and we called Towanda to tell her happy birthday.  We had a little bit of family time and Bruce got ready and went to bishopric meeting. The night before we had figured out there was some kind of trouble at Scott and Amanda’s house. We didn’t know what it was but we knew something wasn’t good over there with them and that was the reason Roy and Terri were in town. So Sunday about 10:30 Bruce called me sobbing saying he got a phone call from Roy who was in joe city at church saying they couldn’t find Scott to get his boys and get to joe city to mom and dads house to help look for Scott. So I told the boys something was wrong with Scott and they needed to get ready to go with Bruce. Bruce ran home and changed. He was just finished up changing and getting out the door and Roy texted and said don’t bring your boys. Bruce got the family together and told us all he loved us and headed out the door. As he was walking out he grabbed my hand and pulled me outside with him and showed me the text on his phone Roy send that said Scott was gone- he had shot himself. Bruce and I were outside on the porch sobbing - Bruce was trying to still get gone to joe city. Our kids were wondering what was going on and were so confused. I assured them our little family was just fine. So they knew something happened with Scott but they had no idea. From there I left and went over with Amanda. She knew but her girls didn’t. I told her I would take her girls to sacrament meeting and she could get her thoughts together on how to tell them. That was the hardest sacrament meeting of my life. We got the girls back home and Amanda told the girls- they were of course heartbroken to find out about their dad. I asked Bruce if I could tell the kids after church and he said yes so I texted Bridget and told them to hustle Home from church and I could tell them what was going on. The kids were so shocked like everybody that hears about it. We went over to Amanda’s house to see the cousins and give hugs. The kids went home and Bruce and I stayed there for a little longer. After the kids being home for about 10 min Dustin sent out a text with a quote from M Russel Ballard about suicide and the judgement on that. Dustin wanted some answers. Bruce and I both took all week off and were pretty much non functional last week. On Saturday December we laid Scott to rest. We are saddened for the pain he was going through that made life so bad.