Remembering Nick Drummond For Erika Laine & Olivia

Erika's Story:

"Words cannot describe how I am feeling.

For the first feeling, I am happy, joyful, overwhelmed at the happiness’s Olivia has brought me and Nick. She born exactly 1 month early on 12/7/23 on Pearl Harbor Day. Which is funny because Nick was born on 2/22/80, George Washington’s Birthday. So I have my history family ❤️

The second feeling I am feeling is sadness, depression, anger, mornfulness, grief, heartache, ect because my sweet husband died in his sleep on 12/12/23 5 days later and 1 month from birthday.

He did not suffer which is how everyone wants to leave this world and enter heaven.

I ask God why did you take this amazing, special, man from me? We had so many plans for the future. This was not how I imagined my life at all. I am still in the hospital due to the NICU nurses giving Olivia a caffeine boost on Sunday night. The caffeine tells the part of her brain to breathe on her own. Doctors aren’t worried about it. This happens a lot with pre term deliveries. She was born at 35 weeks and 4 days.

She needs to be here for 5 days which means I can not leave the hospital until Saturday if everything goes well. If not, and she needs more caffeine the 5 days count starts over.

Nick was loved by so many people. I know that from the texts I have received. He was a wonderful communicator, he loved teaching his students and helping his students with things they needed. He was a go getter, very proactive, and knew how to communicate difficult situations. He loved his job, he loved history, he loved teaching students how to learn and not what to learn. He was very dedicated to his students especially with me being in the hospital and him finishing his recording for the last part of the slide shows. He ended up not being able to finish because we needed to go to the Dr. only to find out that I had been dilated to a 3-4 and needed to come to rapid. I loved him for everything he was and everything he was doing in his career, and future family plans.

He loved his family and his family loved him. He would do anything for his family. He was a great son, a great brother, an amazing uncle who was like a dad to his nephew and nieces.

We got to spend 10 blissful months of marriage to each other and 5 months of us dating. Our story is an amazing one. We would take random pictures of each other to capture our days together, whether it was at Walmart, in the kitchen, outside, him under the sink trying to fix it, etc. I just wish we had more time together. Time for him to see Olivia going home for the first time out of the hospital, driving with her in the car while I sat in the back seat and watched her, her first birthday, her first day of kindergarten, her learning how to drive, playing with her brothers/sisters for the children we were going to have. I just can’t believe this is the reality that I am in right now. "