Officer's widow Kassy Alia engaged to remarry, knows grief and new love can coexist

It was Father’s Day weekend, and Kassy Alia was celebrating on the lake with her in-laws and 3-year-old son, Sal.

“It was a beautiful day,” she said, “and there was this moment where I wondered what life would be like …”

What life would be like if Sal’s father, her husband, Greg Alia, had been there. If Greg, a beloved Forest Acres police officer, had not been shot and killed in the line of duty two and a half years ago.

“I allowed myself to be in that space, but then I snapped out of it and saw …”

And saw the man she now shares her heart with, Sal’s best buddy, the man she’ll marry later this year, Mitch Ray.

Alia thinks of her life as two parallel lives. It’s not the life she might have had, the one she always thought she would, with Greg and Sal. It’s a new life, one where everything’s changed, including herself, a life that’s taught her to find joy and love after her greatest loss.

“I had everything I ever wanted,” Alia said. “But my life is so different now. And when I picture what I would want at this stage, like when I thought about if I were to want a relationship again and what I would look for, Mitch is everything.”

Loss, love and 'Mitchie'

Mitch Ray entered Kassy Alia’s life long before Greg left it.

Ray and the Alias ran in the same social circle. They remember one another as casual friends. And after Greg’s death, Ray was one of the many who filled Alia’s life with support through her grief.

Greg Alia died Sept. 30, 2015, as he was chasing a suspect through Richland Mall early in the morning. He was killed by a bullet to the head, fired by Jarvis Hall, who now is serving life in prison.

“Greg was the love of my life. He was the most important person to me,” Alia said. “People say ‘time heals all wounds,’ and that’s not true. You learn to navigate and live with the grief, but sometimes it comes and knocks me over like a hurricane, and I just crumble.

“But you learn, too, how to embrace joy and love in your life again and hold this tension between recognizing grief in your life while also knowing that your heart’s big enough to love again.”

She had to open herself up to love, for her sake and for Sal’s, she said.

Sal deserved someone to babyproof the deck and the bookshelves of their home. He deserved someone to jump out from behind the couch and surprise him in the mornings, to dress up like superheroes and run around the house, to make pizzas and paint dinosaurs with him.

That’s Ray.

Or as Sal knows him, "Mitchie.”

“Those are my two great loves, and seeing them love each other is my favorite thing,” Alia said.

A cautious road to joy

“I fell in love with Sal. I might have fallen in love with him first, who knows,” Ray said.

His romance with Sal’s mother grew slowly. It started with partnering in Heroes in Blue, the nonprofit Alia organized after Greg’s death. (It’s now called Serve and Connect, and she’s the CEO.)

Ray, who works in screen printing and embroidery, created the first T-shirt the organization sold as a fundraiser.

From that point, he became a member of the nonprofit’s board and began spending more and more time with Alia and Sal.

“I give Sal the assist for being so cute,” Ray said. But over time, Alia became his “best friend.”

"It's sometimes pretty heavy to think that the best thing that's ever happened to me would never have happened without the worst thing that ever happened to Kassy," Ray said. "There is nobody that I’d rather go through life with, because any challenge you’re going to have, you know you’ve got somebody who’s pretty much the best at overcoming challenges and turning them into positives. And that’s somebody I want to go through life with.”

As their friendship developed into something deeper, the pair proceeded cautiously.

They began dating right around the one-year anniversary of Greg’s death, but it was a few months before they shared the news with many people in their community. They did consider how others might react.

"They were not ashamed, but they wanted to be respectful, both of them, of the grief that other people in the community were feeling," said Carly Eklund, a longtime friend of both Alia and Ray.

After losing love, it’s inevitable to ask — and for others to wonder, too: Is it too soon to love again?

Eklund said she could tell the timing was right for her friends because Alia "wasn't clinging onto him as a lifeline. He was simply a beautiful addition to her life that she'd already chosen to live happily."

“I remember talking to my friend,” Alia said, “and she was like, ‘When you’ve been sad for so long, you really forget how to be happy.’ I knew what (Mitch and I) had was so special, and I wanted to work hard to be the woman that he deserved.

“There are so many people who may be scared to love again or not ready. And there’s no rush. There are some people who may never be in relationships again. I think it’s all up to what is right to your heart. But if what’s holding someone back is their fear of being ready or not, or just the fear of trusting again … just be open.”

Proposal for three

It was important to Ray that Sal be a part of the day when he proposed to Alia last September.

"Sal's a big part of our relationship. So I'm not just marrying Kassy; I'm marrying Sal, too," Ray said. "I'm making a commitment to his life as well, so I wanted Sal to be a part of it."

They were hiking in Brevard, N.C., near Asheville.

They passed a man taking photos of birds (a setup), and Sal was fascinated for a moment.

They kept walking, then Ray paused and said, “Hey, hold on one sec,” Alia said.

He bent down, reached into his backpack and handed something to Sal.

It was a T-shirt that read, “Will you marry Mitchie?”

Ray reached again into his backpack and pulled out a ring he had designed. The diamond in it was a gift from his grandmother, who wanted him to give it to Alia.

“And he said, ‘Will you spend the rest of your life with me?’” Alia recalled.

The photographer was there to capture the moment, “and Sal’s little face was the sweetest thing,” Alia said. (Although, she said, “Sal was a little disappointed because he was expecting to see waterfalls, and once he realized that we were just going to be taking pictures after Mitch proposed, he was like, ‘Ugh, I’m over this.’”)

'Love doesn't have those boundaries'

Sal can’t wait “for Mommy to walk down the ‘island’ to marry Mitchie,” Alia says.

That’ll happen Oct. 20 at Columbia’s City Roots farm. It will be a laid-back affair, with barbecue and Motown music, friends and three big, beautiful families: Kassy’s, Mitch’s and Greg’s.

Alia and Ray introduced their relationship to Greg's family a few months after it began, waiting to figure out for themselves whether they had something serious going on.

"I think it was a bit of a shock" to the Alias when Kassy first told them about her and Ray, she said. "I think they expected and hoped that I would find love again, but still, when it's presented to you, it can be a little surprising. So it took some time."

But the Alias grew to love and welcome Ray as a part of their family — which was natural for them, because "we think of Kassy as a daughter," said Alexis Alia, Greg's mother.

Greg's parents think Kassy and Mitch "couldn't be a better match," Alexis said.

For Greg’s birthday last August, the Alias invited Ray to celebrate with them.

“Mitch was like, ‘I so welcome how loving and warm you’ve been to me, but I appreciate if there’s a space just for your family,’” Alia said.

That was a perspective that sealed Ray’s place in the family even deeper, Alia said.

Greg will always be a part of Alia's, Sal's and Ray’s lives and their life together.

“I try to create a space for Greg, too, because I know that she still loves him and she always will,” Ray said. “And that doesn’t take away from how much she loves me. And those things can exist together at the same time, and that’s OK, actually. When you think about it, love doesn’t have those boundaries.”

A future of family

In Ray, Alia has found “this desire to want to be joyful, this desire to have a future that’s filled with happiness and fun and memories.”

“He makes me feel safe again and that I don’t always have to be so strong,” she said. “And it’s not something that happens overnight. It’s not something that, oh, I’m just in love with him and all these things come. It’s an active process of keeping your heart open to that, and it’s so rewarding.”

And in Alia, Ray has found inspiration from her courage and strength — “To be able to have somebody like that as your partner, I know I’m going to live a beautiful life, and I’m happy to share it with her.”

For both of them, what’s most exciting about their future together is just that: having a future of every day spent together.

“What I’m looking forward to most is just life,” Alia said. “I felt like Greg’s life was stolen, our life, our family was stolen. And we’ll never get that back. I’ll never get Greg back. But to know that we have a life again as a family, a different family, but a family — that’s what I’m most excited about, is to have our life together.”

This story was originally published June 29, 2018 at 9:28 AM.