she had written whitney. you know, they said, does she know a whitney? well, there was another girl in the accident. >> my immediate thought was, maybe she was sitting in the van next to whitney. just prior to the accident and that was the -- what was stuck in her head. again, i didn't make a huge deal of it immediately. >> but then there was another disturbing moment. she's being wheeled back from therapy. you were there. >> i was wheeling her down the hall. yeah, and she mumbled something. >> what did she mumble? >> i couldn't make it out. so i leaned my head down, and after maybe the third time, i understood her to be saying, "false parents." >> false parents? >> with barely opening her lips, false parents. and i thought, yeah, right -- we've -- we were with you 24/7, taking care of you like this. >> did you tell suzy about that?

>> i think i did. and maybe that helped -- >> that may have -- >> that led to your thought process. >> i was starting to be a little uneasy and questioning that it was a little bit more than i could understand. >> suzy's unease turned into haunting doubt that evening when some friends joined the van ryns for some dinner at the rehab center. >> when they saw laura, and they had a rather strange reaction. what do you remember about that? >> well, aaron was wheeling laura around in her chair and passing by the entrance to the cafeteria, and i said, aaron, bring laura over here. i want to have her say hi to our friends. so that's how they got a good close up look at her. and they just had a strange look that passed between them on their faces.

and they were somewhat quiet the rest of the evening. >> that night, after a day with friends, lisa returned to her sister's bedside. her dad had told her about the events of the day. and now lisa looked with fresh eyes. >> at that moment it was night. i was sitting with her while she was falling asleep and just thinking, wow, this might not be laura and just looking at her and looking at her and still not feel 1g 00% positive, so i felt uneasy on my drive home. >> lisa turned it all over in her mind -- the pushed up teeth, the two blue eyes, the piercing that hadn't been there before. and now she had written her name as whitney. how could it be? >> i remembered that someone in ft. wayne had given us a cd that was played at whitney's funeral.

i knew it had a picture of her on there. and so i went deliberately to look for that picture immediately when i got home. i looked at it and i noticed her teeth. i thought back to the icu when my brother and i had noticed the teeth. and i thought -- it probably took the wind out of me a little. and i thought, that is the girl that's in the bed. coming up -- the impossible becomes real. >> i said, can i ask you a question? can you tell me your name? >> when "a twist of fate" continues wouldn't it be cool if you took the top down on a crossover? if there were buttons for this? wouldn't it be cool if your car could handle the kids... ♪ ...and the nurburgring? or what if you built a car in tennessee that could change the world? yeah, that would be cool. nissan. innovation for today. innovation for tomorrow. innovation for all. ♪

the night of may 29, 2006, memorial day, laura van ryn's mother, suzy, wrote an anguished entry in her prayer journal. >> please don't take laura from me, lord. my heart is heavy today. please don't let it be.

my heart cries out in desperation to you. this would be more than i can bear. i know you are not a cruel god. what purposes would there be? could my heart deceive me? could i not know my own daughter? oh, god, help me. you are all i have. please give me laurie back. >> what must that have been like when you started to doubt? >> agonizing. first of all, you've been on this emotional roller coaster for five weeks. and we still weren't at the end of it and feeling like we're getting little glimpses of laura, and it's still a long

road ahead, and now all of a sudden, this thought that this might not be laura. you can't deal with that at the moment because there's -- your daughter who's lying there still needs you, and -- and if it's not your daughter, then you need her parents. she needs her mom and dad right away. >> the van ryns had been caring for their critically injured daughter round the clock for five weeks. but now they were asking themselves a terrible question. what if the woman in the bed was not their daughter at all? suzy and lisa already had strong doubts. don was still clinging to the belief that the woman in the bed was laura. may 30th, you all went to the hospital and your friend from the night before came to visit you. >> he and another friend.

they expressed this concern that this young lady might not be laura. and my immediate reaction was, oh, come on, guys, i know my own daughter. it's laura. >> was there any anger on your part when they brought this subject up? >> no, it wasn't anger. it was an uneasy feeling. it was maybe a small bit of fear. >> don realized he had to resolve everyone's doubts one way or another as soon as possible. lisa stayed at the rehab center, don and suzy went home and made some difficult searching phone calls. you try to go back five weeks and find out how the bodies were identified after the accident. >> yes. >> tell me about the calls. what did you find out? >> i think i found out that

there was some of doubt possibly. the accident scene was disastrous, you know. things scattered all over. and i found out i think a visual i.d. was made at the scene. >> and that made you believe even more that there could be room for doubt. >> i believed that, yes, that there was a possibility, sure. >> back at the rehab center, lisa decided she couldn't wait any longer for the truth. you've seen whitney's photographs. you've seen the smile and the teeth and the eyes. and, lisa, you were wheeling her back -- >> mm-hmm. >> -- from a therapy session. >> mm-hmm. >> and you decided this couldn't go any longer without certainty. >> well, when we were in that therapy session, she was throwing a ball to me. they kept telling her, throw it to your sister. and everything in me wanted to say, it's not my sister. it's like i knew right then as they were saying it that it wasn't right. but i didn't want to confuse her, so i didn't say anything in the session. but when we got out into the hallway, it was a quiet moment

just with her on our way back to her room, and i remember it very clearly, stopping and sort of kneeling down, kind of coming face to face with her and not auring any information to her. but just saying, you did awesome today, you're doing really well. i just want to ask you a question. can i ask you a question? she nodded her head. i said, can you tell me your name? and she said, whitney. and i said, that's so good. you're doing so good, and i asked her her parents' names, and she was able to tell me newell and colleen. that was the clincher for me. i knew laura would not know that. so i just told whitney, i said, you're doing so well. do you want to go back to your room? and she just nodded. and i said, here we go. >> when i read that, lisa, it knocked the wind out of me, but you know what else i thought? what a fabulous response you had. what a moment of generosity that was to whitney.

you didn't get up and run screaming down the hall and create more trauma for her. >> well, i loved her. we loved her. we -- >> and still do. >> yeah. i mean -- why would i do that to her? she was -- she had become a dear friend and basically a sister. >> she was a sister. >> yeah. >> but now, they all knew in their hearts that this young woman they had cared for and loved was not theirs, and that certainty led to another. >> immediate realization that, you know, our daughter had died in the accident. but it was still almost two separate issues. and we wanted to -- we wanted to do the -- >> the right thing. >> the best thing for whitney. >> the best thing for her. >> and it was almost like the death of my daughter.

i knew it was a reality at that time, but i would deal with that a little bit later. it sounds odd, doesn't it? >> it sounds hard. >> yeah. >> well, it was hard, but -- i mean we knew where our daughter was, and we knew that newell and colleen needed to know where their daughter was. coming up -- startling news from out of the blue. >> they said, we have reason to believe that your daughter, whitney, is alive. and, really, your whole body goes, no, i know that's not true. >> but was it? when "a twig of fate" continues. more and more folks are trying out snapshot from progressive. a totally different way to save on car insurance. the better you drive, the more you can save. no wonder snapshot's catching on.

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it was one of those things where at 2:00 in the morning, you just grab the phone and just -- nothing ever is really food when somebody calls you at 2:00 in the morning. >> it was five weeks since colleen cerak had taken one fateful call, when she was told her daughter, whitney, had been killed in a high-speed crash. now, the same people who called then were calling back. >> and introduced themselves as the grant county coroner and grant county chaplain. they were both on the phone. and the first thing they said was i alone. >> her husband, newell, was in new jersey chaperoning a trip. with a church youth group. he'd been traveling the night whitney died. this was his first trip since then.

>> i said, well, my daughter's home. they said, could you get her on the phone? so i got out of bed. and still not really thinking that clearly. give carly the phone, wake her up. and i went downstairs to get on the other extension. and that's when they said, we have reason to believe that your daughter, whitney, is alive. >> a statement so unexpected, so overwhelming, she couldn't even comprehend it at first. >> you know, then you go -- really your whole body goes, oh, now, i know that's not true. we buried our daughter. and i said we know for sure that the girl in the hospital in grand rapids is not laura van ryn and we think that it's whitney. could you get some dental records and come down here? >> colleen, at this point, how high up in your body did you allow that swell of hope to rise? >> there wasn't any hope at that point. it was more of like a duty. you know, just close this door. i know it's not whitney. it's something that we needed to

do. but i didn't even know if we needed do it at that point. i just said, can i call you back? >> i ran downstairs. i told my mom, whoever this is, i don't know why they're doing this, but this isn't real. i knew for sure that there was no way that whitney was alive especially because laura's friends are some of my really close friends. they know whitney through me. and even one of my closest friends went and visited, and she's really close with whitney. they never said anything about it. so i knew for sure there was no way it was whitney. >> nevertheless, at 2:00 a.m., colleen called the family dentist, who agreed to pull whitney's records. schenn she called her husband newell. >> i know because the edge in her voice that there's something up, and i go -- my thought immediately -- i said, not carly! i just said, not carly. thinking that maybe carly had been in some accident.

and when she said to me, you know, that there's a possibility that whitney could be alive, id was like, no, she's gone. we buried her. and then i hear carly. she got on the phone and said, dad, don't you believe it for a second. i go, carly, i don't. i don't. i really believe that's whitney that we buried. >> he spent a sleepless night by the phone while whitney's mother and sister picked up her dental records and made the three-hour trip to the rehab center. drive, still not believing it. >> no. >> talking through all the reasons why it couldn't be whitney. >> it kind of worked its way down. like when we got in the car, it was just a duty. we just needed to do this. we're just like, this is stupid, let's just get it done. >> i still was certain it wasn't whitney, and i didn't want go on the trip. i only went because my mom really wanted me to go. >> then about halfway we started thinking, you know, but what if? you know, and then we were just

kind of making it kind of funny things like, well, if it is, it's going to be this movie and we started picking out like the cast of characters. >> who would play who. >> who would play who in it. that kept us going for a little bit. and the closer we got, the more serious we became. and just like, but if they couldn't recognize their daughter for five weeks, what are we going to see? and then we got -- and then it was like that anxiousness that was there. you know. what was she going to look like if they couldn't recognize her, would we recognize her if it was whitney? was she ever going to be our whitney again? so it was pretty scary. >> by the time we got to the hospital, i was so upset that we even had to go look at whoever this girl is. in my mind, the closest i could think was someone else got into an accident at the same time that this accident happened in the hospital those two girls got switched. and it was some random girl. i just figured whoever it was must still be pretty disfigured.

so i was nervous to see whatever this person looked like. >> they reached the rehab center at daybreak. the staff was waiting at the door. >> welcomed us. but it was very reserved. and you know, tried to explain little things or ask us if we had any questions. but, really, all we wanted to do was see if this was really whitney. so they walked us -- they walked us back to her room. and i was first following behind them. the lights had to be low. i just remember that they -- they just cracked open the door just a little bit. >> and i remember just feeling so confused and shaking so much. and seeing van ryn on the plate in front of the door. and then opening the door and seeing this girl facing the window lying down on this bed. >> could the young woman in the bed possibly be whitney? coming up -- the moment of truth. >> they're all just crying and

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ll. i'm milissa rehberger. new hampshire is gearing up for two debates. they'll go head to head in just a few hours for the first one and there's tomorrow morning's "meet the press" debate which can be seen right here on c. and while new york is seeing warm weather, europe is definitely not. in switzerland, things have been cut off as they expect 19 feet of snow this weekend. now back to "twist of fate." whitney cerak's mother and sister had driven three hours, not really daring to believe what they'd been told.

that there was a chance that whitney, whom they'd lost, mourned, buried five weeks ago, that whitney was not dead, but alive. now in the neuro wing of the rehab center they slowly pushed open the door, and looked at the young woman inside. >> i remembered this right away. i could just tell it's whitney. and i just said, it's whitney. and carly just like pushed past me at that point just to run in there. just almost like stumbled on top of her. just loving her. which woke whitney up, and she was just kind of shaking her head like, yes, it's whitney. >> we were all just crying and screaming and totally disregarding all of the rules they had set up for the rooms -- they couldn't let us stay in the room very long. but it was amazing just to see her open her eyes. >> did she say anything?

>> it was just -- we kept on saying her name. you know, like whitney. and she would just -- she was like shaking her head. yes, like, yes, it's whitney. you know, and it was pretty -- pretty special. >> five weeks before, whitney's father, newell, had been on a trip. colleen had to call then and tell him whitney was dead. he was on a trip again this time. but this call was different. >> colleen goes, it's whitney. and i just immediately fell to the floor. i go, no. i go, hang up the phone. so she hung up, and i called her back. because i just didn't believe it. >> it was like a dream. he had to make me call back. >> so i called back and she said i'm standing here and it's whitney. and i just -- i go -- the first thought in my head was, is there something wrong with her? >> what does she look like? >> what does she look like?

she goes, beautiful as ever. >> there's a note in the daily medical chart -- laura van ryn, whitney cerak -- mistaken identity. a few simple words that can't begin to convey the tide of emotions coarsing through two families, whitney's family from grief to disbelief to joy that their daughter was alive. laura's family, from hope to doubt to the final confirmation through dental records that laura was gone. >> the hardest thing i ever had to do, matt, was tell my sons that they had lost their sister. and there's not the right words to say in that situation. and, yeah, i mean i just fell to my knees and wept. and expressed to the rest of my family how much i was going to need them. i'm just going to need you all to get through this.

>> they zbrierks >> this may sound horrible and please understand this, how i say this, would it have almost been easier to lose laura the night of the accident than after five weeks of what happened? >> i don't know. we talk about that a little bit, but losing your child, your daughter, your son, whenever it happens, it's not supposed to happen. >> in the midst of their grief, there was also dread. what did whitney's family think of them? the families met at the rehab center. shortly after the ceraks were reunited with whitney. >> i think suzy had some of those feelings of, you know, they're going to hate us and, you know, we've kept them from their daughter all this time and -- but it was the look on colleen's face, wasn't it? >> mm-hmm. >> comforting? >> compassion. >> compassion. she knew -- she would know exactly how i was feeling at that moment.

because she had been there. and i would know how she felt getting her daughter. knowing that her daughter had survived. >> they gave us a hug, and i remember them saying, they're so happy for us. and i -- i just had to say how sorry i was to them for their loss. >> your family's had a miracle, but it means that their family has just had a tragedy? >> yeah. i was -- it was really hard. we had so much to be grateful to them for, but we knew what they were feeling. >> you said something, don, i think, when you addressed them. you must think we're the world's biggest dopes, not knowing our own daughter. >> i said idiots. i said that to colleen. and she just -- her retort was, we love you guys.

and don't even think that for a second. it was very reassuring. >> later that day, whitney's father newell arrived after driving 14 straight hours to get to his daughter. >> when i finally got there, she sat up and put her arms out like that, and i couldn't believe it. i just remembered running over to her, and gist remember crying and calling her name over and over and over again. and that was just the moment. i mean it was utter disbelief. >> being complete again, yeah. >> that same day, laura's sister, once again, updated her blog and delivered a message that stunned her readers around the world. >> we have some hard news to share with you today. our hearts are aching as we have learned that the young woman we have been taking care of over the past five weeks has not been our dear laura, but instead a fellow taylor student of hers, whitney cerak.

it is a sorrow and a joy for us to learn of this turn of events. for us, we will mourn laura's going home and will greatly miss her compassionate heart and sweetness while knowing that she is safe and with her king forever. and we rejoice with the ceraks that they will have more time on this earth with their daughter, sister, and loved one. thanks again for the support that you've been. please continue your prayers. our god is good and continues to be our help, our guide, our comfort. we love you. >> suzy van ryn made one last entry in the prayer journal she had kept for five weeks, a journal she intended to give to laura. >> i do not know what to say. god, you are my refuge, please protect me.

you are my strength. i am entirely weak. you will give me peace and comfort. please see me through the days ahead. >> the two families had switched roles completely. as if they'd passed through a mirror. now, it was whitney's family coping with a brain-injured patient and the long road to recovery, even as laura's family planned a funeral. but there was a big difference now. >> there was a mix-up in identifying their daughters. >> both families are very disturbed by the mix-up. >> intense media coverage. the story of the mix-up made national and world headlines. for laura's family, the attention was excruciating. >> the worst part was seeing her picture all the time. that's my little girl.

and i just want to do this quietly. i don't want everybody watching. so that was hard. we didn't answer the phone, so that wasn't very hard. we just quit answering the phone. >> but they could not stop the questions. how did the mix-up happen? how did it go on so long? they'll answer those questions for the first time, next. coming up -- there were these little moments of eye color and teeth and the belly button. how do you explain that to people? >> when "a twist of fate" continues. the "i'll sleep when it's done" academic. for 80 years, we've been inspired by you.

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♪ >> the tears we cry are for ourselves because we know we have lost one of the best friends anyone could ask for. ♪ my heart is blessed that you called me your own ♪ >> on june 4th, a memorial service was held for laura van ryn. just days earlier, her family had come to a terrible realization, that laura had been dead for five weeks while they kept a round-the-clock vigil at the bedside of whitney cerak, a

young woman they never met but believed to be their daughter. >> there was a powerful service, and it was a good time of sharing from laura's friends and others who talked about laura and what kind of a person she was, compassionate, always thinking of the interests of others over herself. >> even people who knew her before felt like they got to know her better. >> but a question hovered over them all. >> many of you today are probably wondering how a man can date a girl and love a girl for three years and not know that it was her. >> how could the people who knew laura best, her own family, her closest friends, mistake another woman for her? laura's longtime boyfriend, aaron. >> i saw her -- her hands, her feet, her complexion. and i couldn't believe it wasn't her.

even to this day, it's amazing to me that out of how much time we have spent together they just didn't know. and there's been many times in these last couple of days where i've been mad at god and how he could allow this to happen to me. >> let's just try and handle the one question that so many viewers are going to ask once and for all. they're going to say, you were right up against the bed 24 hours a day. there were these little moments of eye color and teeth and the belly button, and they're going to say how could this have gone on for so long? how do you explain it to people? >> well, first i say, you're right -- it's an amazing thing, isn't it? how could it have gone on so long? as we've tried to describe, you have to try and put yourself in our shoes at the time. >> start with the crash itself. total chaos.

somehow, the two women's purses and photo i.d.s were switched at the scene. then the survivor was rushed to the hospital. the coroner later acknowledged he'd done no scientific tests to confirm the identities of the dead. state law at the time did not require any. and, remember, no member of whitney's family ever asked to see her body. >> did anybody ask anyone at the hospital how the body was identified? >> no. >> no. >> we didn't. >> we just assumed that the identifications had been made. >> why -- >> we didn't question anything at that point. >> but what about laura's family? it's true that whitney and laura shared a superficial resemblance. both were young, blond, attractive. but there were key differences too. the teeth. the eyes. the piercing. and whitney is about four inches taller than laura. how could they not see those

differences? >> it just goes back to what we were told on the way down that our daughter had been in a bad accident, expect to see her altered. we walked in, we saw that, and with the tubes hanging out. and she looked like laura. and there were a lot of similarities definitely. as i look at the two now, no, i don't think she looks like laura. again, you have to realize, too, that at least a hundred other people, other friends were in that room and saw her. >> also you have to consider our emotional state of, you know, you're just -- you're hydroplaning through this. >> here's a picture that's never been seen before. a photo of whitney taken about ten days after the crash. while she was still in a coma, while she was still thought to be laura. now, here's the real laura. and here's whitney. ask yourself -- without the benefit of hindsight, could you identify the patient? with her brain injury, she went

for days without opening her eyes? she had no facial expressions. she wasn't speaking. so there were no trademark smiles. >> right. >> there wasn't that trademark expression in the cheeks and the eyes. she was a little bit of a blank slate at that particular point, wasn't she? >> yes. >> is that perhaps it? that when people face a trauma like this and a world turned upside down, that in some ways you see what you're told to see and believe what you hope to believe? >> it's quite possible. all our energy was focused on making her well. healing her. and it became her identity we talked about. >> her altered state became her identity. >> yeah. and you say it well. none of these things we were looking for. we weren't looking to establish this wasn't our daughter. >> viewers are all saying why didn't you notice the teeth or the shoes or whatever.

it's like those are pieces to a puzzle that we didn't even know existed. >> we didn't know there was a puzzle. >> we didn't know we were supposed to be putting together a puzzle. >> a puzzle they didn't create and didn't know to look for. a puzzle that took five weeks to solve. do you even understand how this mistake could have happened and lasted for five weeks? >> no, i don't think i totally understand how it could happen. i mean we look back and say, well, yeah, maybe that should have been picked up on or we could have picked up on that, but if you're in that moment, it doesn't even occur to you. >> you know, we all chose the different paths that we chose. not to look at the body, and, you know, they chose to believe what was told them. and we respect that and we're so thankful for what they did for whitney. >> they also feel a little guilty about by not recognizing that it was whitney and not their daughter, that they brought so much extra suffering on you unnecessarily.

>> you know, those five weeks were hard. they were very, very hard. but they -- they should feel no guilt for that whatsoever. i know that they loved her every bit as much as they would have their own daughter. that in itself was huge. >> but how did all the confusion of those five weeks affect a young woman with a brain injury who was struggling to regain her memory and identity? next, we'll ask the woman at the center of it all, whitney cerak. coming up -- >> you actually listened to a tape of your funeral ceremony. >> that's true. >> not many people can say that. >> one in a million. >> when "a twist of fate" continues. or zero dependency on foreign oil. ♪ this is why we at nissan built a car inspired by zero. because zero is worth everything.

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whitney cerak -- back from the grave. she was presumed dead in the high-speed collision that killed five of her fellow passengers. her parents buried a woman they thought was her. parents went through and your sister went through over those five weeks how does it make you feel? >> really sad whenever i think of it. really sad. it's really hard to even imagine what they went through. but i know it must have been hard. >> they had to come down here to college and clean out your dorm room, take your belongings away. >> yeah. >> then they had to sit in the front row of that church on the day of your funeral. >> i don't like to imagine that. >> you don't like to think about it do you? >> uh-huh not all the pain they went through. >> she spent weeks in a coma, weeks in which she had been mistaken for another woman, and cared for by laura's family who

were total strangers to her. mercifully perhaps whitney says there is a big gap in her memory starting with april 26th, 2006, the night of the crash. what do you remember about that day? >> i remember working in the banquet and it was reel finn and we stopped for pizza afterward. >> where were you sitting in the van? >> couldn't tell you. >> no idea. >> uh-huh. >> what is your first memory then after the pizza? >> the next memory i have is just like rolling over in the hospital bed and stooeg my mom and just crying a lot. that's the only thing i remember probably for a week. just how emotional i was. >> she says the five weeks between the crash and her mother's arrival are a blur, mostly a blank. the weeks laura's family stayed at her bedside believing she was their daughter whitney says she doesn't remember that or them at all. >> when you think about it now, whitney, and you think about the fact that here you were struggling to come out of this

coma to figure out what was going on and as you looked up these people standing over you were strangers. >> i don't remember what was going on. it must have been like messing with my mind and seeing them and having them call me laura but i can't wrap my mind around that. >> she was struggling to reassemble her memory in those weeks sometimes calling lisa van reine lisa her sister and sometimes carly her own sister sheechlt called laura's boyfriend hunter which meant nothing to them. one mystery whitney was able to clear up for us. >> hunter is my dog. i'm embarrassed to say that i talk about him that much but everyone else that i'm really good friends with i chose my dog. doesn't make sense. >> how well did you know laura?

>> i worked a few banquets with her. we drove up together to ft. wayne to work the banquet and that is almost the first time i really talked to her. >> from the little you knew about her personality wise did you see any similarities in the two of you? >> uh-huh. >> not really. how about physically when you first met her? did it ever occur to you, hey, we kind of look a little bit alike? >> it never occurred to me. >> never thought about it. now that you've heard the story, and you know what took place for those five weeks, is it hard for you to imagine how you could have been confused for someone else for that long a period of time? >> if everyone in the hospital was saying that i was their daughter, or their sister, you know, that makes sense. why would you doubt what they're saying? and my face was like really swollen, so maybe they just thought like i would have a different appearance after that horrible accident. >> once whitney's true identity was known, her struggle was far

from over. her family took some video at the rehab center. you can see how weak she was, how thin. what you can't see is what was inside. >> what was the hardest part for you, the hardest thing for you to get back? >> i think just my emotional state. i just wasn't able to cry. and i don't know. now i'm able to cry again and that's just one thing that was so huge for me because i wasn't able to cry over very, very -- this very, very sad accident that happened. >> the crash and tragic mixup that followed made her briefly famous. people joked with her about it. but whitney had a different reaction. >> i would just cry out to god a lot and just be like, why? why me? because everyone else in the accident, they were just amazing people. and so i never really understood why i was in a way left behind. i was just talking to my dad

about it one day and i was like, dad, i don't get this. why me? he's like, whitney, why not you? >> so, for five weeks back in 2006, this was simply not a possible picture, right? what's it like to look over now and see this family as one? >> it's a constant reminder, constant reminder of what happened that night but at the same time, then, i looked down the couch here and i see -- i see my family and it just brings me tremendous joy. >> colleen? >> i'll cry. >> it's okay. >> this is completeness right here. it feels good just to be together like this. >> whitney visited for the first time the cemetery where her parents buried the woman they thought was her. >> you've actually listened to a tape of your funeral ceremony.

>> that's trunche. >> now you've seen where your parents buried you. >> hum. >> not many people can say that. >> that's true. one in a million. >> how does that feel? >> it is so crazy to me to think that, yeah, i listened to my own funeral service and now i'm seeing where i supposedly was buried and it's just like a dream to me. you know? >> so when you come back here now and realize what happened here and how your lives have changed over the last two years, what are your thoughts? >> i'm just glad we're on this side of the fence right now. >> the hurt and the pain is definitely on that side of the fence and this side of the fence, you know, we have been given a gift. we have been given a tremendous gift in whitney's life again and to be able to spend more time with you here on this earth is just something that we're going to forever be thankful for. >> taylor university built a new chapel dedicated to the five people killed in the crash. the university estimates that 1200 people gathered for its

dedication. you have a favorite saying, actually something that you think god will say to you. >> i hope. >> you hope. >> when it comes time to pass from one world into the other. it is? well done, good and faithful servant. >> mm-hmm. >> you have that sign up in a couple different places. >> yeah. >> apparently god wasn't ready to say it to you. >> uh-huh. no. my work and i know this sounds so corny but like my work on earth isn't finished yet. >> so there's a reason for this. >> yeah. there's a reason for everything. >> and to the van ryn family, they stood by your side for five weeks. never left you. loved you because they thought you were their daughter. what do you think about them? >> i love the van ryn family. they're so great. and the fact that they can still look me in the eye and say, i love you, whitney, like that

just speaks so many words to me and just shows me how much they really do love me. >> that love was evident when we asked the two families to share a meal. for nearly two years they protected each other's privacy, never speaking publicly about what happened. recently, however, they decided to write a book together and tell their story. >> father, we do thank you. we thank you for this moment right now just to be together. we thank you for the friendship that has developed over the last year and a half. thank you for don and susie and lisa. thank you again for whitney and laurie and for her life and how she has healed and is continuing to heal. thank you for all we have. it's in your name we pray. amen. >> amen. >> in june, 2006, about a week after the mixup was discovered, laura van ryn's body was removed from the cemetery near whitney's house and laid to rest near her

own family's home. that same day, lisa van ryn closed out her blog with one last entry that sums up this story as only one who lived it could do. >> our final encouragement to all is this. do not hang on to the things of this world too tightly. life here is but a vapor and there is an eternity ahead. as you remember the van ryn and cerak families let us encourage you to look to your neighbors as well. god calls us to love. >> a couple notes to end on. the state of indiana has now changed its laws to set clear standards for identifying accident victims. the driver who hit that van carrying laura and whitney pleaded guilty to reckless homicide and was sentenced to four years in prison. you can read an excerpt from the van ryn and