Couple Falls in Love 12 Years After Tragic Accident Claimed Both Their Siblings’ Lives
As anyone who has ever lost a loved one knows, the pain and grief never completely go away. Sometimes, however, God creates beauty in the midst of the pain.
One newlywed couple from Sweet, Idaho, is an excellent example of how deep loss can result in joy and blessing.
On February 27, 2007, Jeremy Walker and Sage Probst (now Sage Walker) lost five of their brothers and sisters in a tragic car accident. Megan, Tyler, and Kyle Walker had been traveling to school with Brooke and Brant Probst when the young driver lost control of the car on the icy roads.
The car slid off the road and into a pond near the Black Canyon Dam, about 30 miles from Boise, according to The Spokesman-Review.
The five students were trapped inside the vehicle and tragically drowned.
Jeremy was just 10 years old the day that he lost his family members.
“I’d always been a middle middle child,” he told KTVB. “I was the fourth down and the fourth from the end. And all of a sudden that put me and then my younger brother — we’re the oldest in the family all of sudden.”
Sage had been 8 years old that day.
“I just remember as my mom was taking me out the door, having in my head all day that a white car drove into a pond and that was the color car they drove,” she said. “So I just remember going to school with that in the back of my mind, worried.”
The loss hit the two families hard, but they leaned into each other for support as they grieved and moved forward in life. The Walker and Probst families had always been close, and walking through this pain brought them even closer together.
“After the accident, our families went on quite a few yearly traditions to remember the kids,” Sage told KTVB. “We went to Hawaii together, we went to Disney World together. Our families were just really close and we did a lot together. We just became best friends.”
As the two families grew closer, so did Jeremy and Sage.
Jeremy was the first one to recognize that he had feelings that went beyond mere friendship with Sage.
“As Sage got a little older and especially as I got a little older, it started to be pretty apparent that we had feelings for each other,” he said. “I just remember at her twelfth birthday, just like, ‘Man, Sage is so gorgeous.’ And I’d always thought she was so fun and beautiful and things like that but I remember that being the first time where I thought, ‘Man, I like Sage.'”
Sage didn’t reciprocate until later, but she eventually developed feelings for her friend despite denying it to her friends at school.
“[L]ater on, seventh grade-ish, I started to actually like him and so that’s kind of where the feelings started,” she said.
Jeremy asked Sage out on their first date after her 16th birthday party, and although it went well, they didn’t officially become a couple until he returned from his LDS mission in January of 2018. They were married just 7 months later in August of 2018.
It is now 12 years after the tragic loss of their siblings, and Jeremy and Sage are happily married and very much in love — a beautiful ending born out of what was a painful experience for them both.
Jeremy and Sage told KTVB that they believe their siblings would be happy for them, and think they would be pleased the way things turned out for them.
“We felt like they’ve been excited when we got married,” Sage said. “we definitely felt them there on our wedding day.“
The couple also said that they look forward to having children and telling them all about their five aunts and uncles.
“I imagine they’re just like looking down and they’re just as happy as could be,” Jeremy said.
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