KALAMAZOO, MI - As a little girl, Emily Lemmer dreamed about her dad walking her down the aisle. Instead, she carried his ashes and her brother's in an urn alongside her bouquet.

The urn, not her father, would occupy the empty seat beside her mom.

They didn't get to dance to Heartland's "I Loved Her First," a song that made her father's eyes well up with tears when they first heard it. She knew, even then as a child, that they would one day dance to it at her wedding. Instead of having her dad on her arm, she had a heart-shaped piece of his favorite blue shirt sewn into her dress.

The wedding, while a celebration, was bittersweet for Lemmer. She struggled to make December's momentous occasion about her and new husband Kyle Lemmer, and not about the two other men she dearly loved who couldn't be there.

"As much as it was beautiful and as much as it was everybody's dream, for me it was kind of like a nightmare," she said. "It's not because it wasn't nice or wasn't pretty. It was everything anyone could ever ask for. It was just not what I had envisioned as a kid."

Two of the people Lemmer wanted most to be there were among six killed Feb. 20, 2016 in a mass shooting.

Rich and Tyler Smith were looking at a car in a dealership parking lot when a gunman ambushed and shot them, then drove away. Police say soon after that the Uber driver fatally shot four woman and critically injured 14-year-old Abigail Kopf in a restaurant parking lot off I-94. Hours earlier, he is accused of shooting Tiana Carruthers, who survived, at a townhome complex east of Kalamazoo.

Jason Dalton faces six counts of murder, two counts of assault with intent to commit murder and eight felony firearm counts in the shootings.

As the anniversary of that horrific day last February approaches, Lemmer and her mother, Laurie Smith, say they still feel like they're living in a fog, like Tyler and Rich could walk through the door at any minute. Lemmer said it feels like forever since she's seen them, but the pain feels like it just happened yesterday.

"When there's that one thing that they should be there for, it breaks your imagination, your imaginative take on the whole situation, and kind of brings you back to reality. Reality's not really something we want to realize," she said.

"In the days leading up to it, it just feels like deja vu almost, it feels like everything is happening. I feel like I'm just going to get that call over and over again."

Smith and Lemmer keep mementos of Rich and Tyler with them daily. They both have a pendant that holds their ashes. Smith wears hers on a chain around her neck, hanging close to her heart. She wears Rich's wedding ring around her neck as well.

Lemmer wears a bracelet she got her brother for his birthday. The pendant holding his ashes and her father's hangs from her Jeep's rearview mirror, along with Tyler's Mattawan High School Class of 2016 graduation tassels and her father's Pfizer work ID badge. She said she feels closest to them in her Jeep, in which the family spent many summers traversing the Silver Lake Sand Dunes. Ashes of both Rich and Tyler were spread over Sunset Hill, a point in the dunes where Lake Michigan and Silver Lake are visible.

"Even though it's not him, it's a memory," Lemmer said of the mementos. "You hold onto all the memories. Even though the memories hurt, you hold onto them because that's all you have left."

A PAINFUL ANNIVERSARY

Smith said she's dreading the anniversary of the shootings, if only because it makes the loss of her husband and son more real.

"I don't want it to be past one year, because it's almost like I have to face reality," she said. "It's been really hard losing a child and added onto that I don't have my soulmate, the person that would normally get through everything. I'm thankful that I still have Emily, but she has her life and I don't want to be the third wheel everywhere. We're very close and we do a lot together."

She tries not to think about the 25th wedding anniversary she and Rich, who was 53, would have celebrated this year. She was sure they would have one day celebrated 50 years together.

"It's really hard that we didn't make it to 25 when I planned on experiencing grandchildren and everything you want to experience," she said. "I try not to think about that, because there are no answers. I try to do what I need to do and focus on other people and what I need to do there."

Smith said she can count on one hand the times she has been grocery shopping since Feb. 20. Something that was once so basic is now hard.

"I still find myself grabbing things that I know that they would have wanted, and then putting them back and not actually grabbing them because no, it's just you," she said.

She has days when she doesn't cry, and others when she's "a mess." She tries to keep busy. She's been instrumental in planning a Forever Strong memorial project that will be unveiled at a community candlelight vigil at Wings Event Center the night of Feb. 20.

"That's really where I think my hope is, is in that," Smith said.

"It's kind of rediscovering what my purpose is and I know it's definitely something to do with giving back to others. That's where I find any real joy anymore."

Smith said the community support she and her family have received keeps her going on days she doesn't want to get out of bed. She hears about how Tyler, just 17 when he died, had touched people's lives in ways she didn't even know, like the father who donated a tree in Tyler's name because of how he treated his son.

"It's actually been helpful that the community is so embracing and supportive, because it gives us an expectation that we have to be what they think we are, even though we don't feel strong, or we don't feel inspirational, it helps keep us going and it has over the past year," she said.

That support has given the family strength as they grapple with not only the loss of their loved ones, but the cold, senseless manner in which they were taken.

"The way they died makes this a million times harder," Smith said. "The fact that (Dalton's) not even remorseful about it."

Lemmer said that's the part that hurts the most.

"What I would kill to have him tell me that he's sorry, even though it wouldn't make the pain go away, but just the fact that he was sorry and it hurt him."

Both Smith and Lemmer were in the courtroom during Dalton's preliminary examination last spring, and say they plan to be there for the trial, which is not yet scheduled.

"I want him to see me. I want him to have to face me," Lemmer said.

"I want him to have to look at me and see he left me without a dad. He left me without a brother. He left my unborn baby without a grandpa. He left my unborn baby without an uncle. I will never be an aunt.

"I just want him to know and look at me and realize that he destroyed my life."