Her Daughter Died in the Texas Floods. Then Her Letters from Camp Arrived

Lindsey McLeod McCrory’s 8-year-old daughter, Blakely, bounded onto the Camp Mystic bus on June 29 without shedding a single tear. She had a few concerns — mostly about the food — but homesickness wasn’t one of them.

“She even made this comment like, ‘Mom I get a whole month off from you!” McLeod McCrory tells TODAY.com, with a laugh. “Blakely was ready to go have fun with her friends and be independent."

When McLeod McCrory, 50, drove away, a wave of sadness settled over her as she imagined how quiet their house would be without Blakely dancing through the rooms. Her husband, Blake, had died unexpectedly in March at 59. But as a proud Camp Mystic alum herself, the mom took comfort in knowing that Blakely was heading off for an unforgettable summer.

Then, in the early hours of July 4, tragedy stuck along the Guadalupe River in Central Texas when a sudden flash flood surged through Camp Mystic, resulting in 27 confirmed deaths, including 21 campers and 6 counselors.

McLeod McCrory had already departed on a long-awaited trip to Croatia with her sister and two nieces on July 2, reassured by the thought that Blakely was making herself at home. Family friends working as counselors at Camp Mystic sent her regular updates.

"They were like, 'Blakely is hilarious! She's having the best time,'" McLeod McCrory says.

She was on a boat in Europe without service when Camp Mystic began sending out emails and making frantic calls. It wasn’t until they docked and her phone began buzzing nonstop that she grasped the magnitude of the situation.

She learned that more than 26 feet of water rose within 45 minutes, sweeping through the camp property’s lowest-lying cabins, among them Twins I, where Blakely stayed.

Then she found out that Blakely was missing.

“I dropped my phone on the table and started shaking,” McLeod McCrory says. Too overwhelmed to call, she asked her sister to contact the camp.

“And they confirmed, Blakely was unaccounted for,” she recalls. “My whole heart just sank.”

She and her sister immediately returned to Houston. The flight felt endless but McLeod McCrory clung to hope.

“Even during the DNA testing with the other families whose children were missing, I kept thinking, ‘She’s out there somewhere. Maybe she’s lost. Maybe she’s hanging onto a tree with a counselor,’” McLeod McCrory says. She clutched a rosary throughout what she calls “the whole not-knowing process.”

On June 7, McLeod McCrory received the devastating call that that Blakely’s body had been recovered. Blakely was found wearing her green-and-white beaded Camp Mystic necklace.

McLeod McCrory says she didn’t break down. Instead, she felt a sense that Blakely was “in heaven with her daddy,” and with McLeod McCrory’s brother, Chanse, who had died just weeks earlier in June.

“I did have scenarios in my head, you know, what if she’s severely injured and suffering?” McLeod McCrory says. “It brought me peace knowing that she went quickly.”

Moments after learning of Blakely’s passing, McLeod McCrory stepped outside with some loved ones who had come to support her.

“There’s this beautiful old cedar tree that we were admiring,” she said. “And it has these lights. This one light kept flickering for a while, and then it finally turned back on. My friend said, ‘Lindsey, that was Blakely. She’s OK.’”

“She died happy,” McLeod McCrory says. She believes Blakely probably found a thrill in the unexpected adventure of evacuating her bunk on mattresses in the middle of the night.

"One of her counselors who survived said that she was encouraging other campers to not be scared," McLeod McCrory says.

Days later, with funeral preparations underway, a letter arrived from Blakely written on fill-in-the-blank stationery. In it, the rising third grader shared that she was “good,” that camp was “amazing” and that she was participating in tennis, horseback riding and land sports.

“She had asked me about the activities I had done when I was a kid, and she ended up taking all the same activities,” McLeod McCrory says, her voice steady but tinged with sadness.

“I’m a Tonk,” Blakely wrote her mom, referring to one of the two “tribes” all the kids at camp are sorted into when they arrive.

Then a second letter arrived. Blakely had an urgent request. She had been thinking about their upcoming move and wanted to make sure her mom wasn’t planning to donate something important to her.

“Dear Mommy,” it read. “Please don’t give my Barbie Dream house.”

"I didn't cry," McLeod McCrory says. "It made me smile. I could hear her little voice as she wrote it. I’d asked her which toys I could throw out and at first her Barbie Dream house was on the list. But then, I guess she had a change of heart!”

People often tell McLeod McCrory they don’t understand how she can be so strong. She says she leans heavily on her faith. At times, she closes her eyes and pictures Camp Mystic, a place filled with joy and memories.

“The magic of Camp Mystic is that sisterhood, but it’s also faith-based,” she says. She remembers Sunday services by the water, the wind rustling through the cypress trees.

“It was spiritual,” she says. “You felt close to God there.”

In the moments when she feels overcome with sorrow and all the unanswerable whys, McLeod McCrory says she has been channeling her late daughter.

“Blakely had to bear witness to two deaths — her dad and her uncle — and it didn’t kill her spirit,” she says. “It’s hard to cope with this unimaginable grief, but you can make a decision to honor your loved ones by moving forward and living life, and that is what I’m going to try and do.”

McLeod McCrory’s week is filled with funerals for Camp Mystic children. Blakely’s is on Friday.

“I look forward to giving hugs,” she says. “People don’t know what to say. There are no words, and that’s OK. A hug says it all.”

This article was originally published on TODAY.com