Sean McLeod and Alanna Jenkins loved being grandparents to two-year-old Ellie so much that they spent the last several weeks urging her parents to have more kids.

“They wanted nothing more than to retire with a house full of grand babies,” McLeod’s daughter, Taylor Andrews, told the Star this week.

Due to the coronavirus pandemic, Andrews sent Snapchat videos of Ellie to Jenkins daily in lieu of their usual frequent visits.

Those mobile conversations would end up being some of the last Andrews exchanged with her beloved dad and stepmom.

The pair were among 22 people killed in a gunman’s rampage this past weekend in Nova Scotia. In the wake of the tragedy, and as the police investigation pushes on, the loved ones of victims have been left to try to find their way through the grieving process under the spotlight of a crime that is both high-profile and unprecedented in modern Canadian history in terms of its scope. Many have taken at least some solace in their memories.

“Glad we got the chance to tell him loved him,” Andrews wrote over messenger to the Star. “It still doesn’t seem real. I just keep thinking I’m going to look at my phone and have a message from my dad asking ‘What’s my little Ellie belly doing’?”

Andrews described McLeod and Jenkins as a couple so perfectly matched, they were practically the same person.

“They both loved being outside, hunting, fishing, being with family and friends,” she said. “They loved going on vacations together. They went multiple times a year.”

The pair met through their work as correctional services officers and built a life together centred on family and friends. It was a life they loved, Andrews said, and she cannot understand why it was taken away.

“We knew other victims and I just don’t understand why all these sweet innocent people were taken from us for no reason,” she said. “What made this man think they deserved to have this happen to them?”

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