Kevin's Funeral

I’ve tried to write this post several times in the last week, but I just haven’t found the right words. Lots of the feelings and experiences that we have had over the last couple of weeks are just too personal to write about here. This was the first time our kids have ever dealt with the death of a loved one and the first time that Nate and I have lost someone we were actually close to. Needless to say, it has been quite an emotional couple of weeks. My heart hurts when I think about all the things Kevin will miss out on and all the people who will miss him, but I am grateful that he has been part of our lives for all of these years.

I feel like I learned a lot about Kevin in the days after he passed away. Some of it (like the picture of him in his sister’s leotard and another with a Napoleon Dynamite perm), I wish I would have known about earlier so I could have given him a hard time about it. Lots of other things made me respect and admire him more than ever before. When Jody was putting together memorabilia to take to the mortuary, she pulled out an old newspaper article from when Kevin was a high school senior. It was five years after his accident and the local paper had interviewed him about how he was “beating the odds.” I was so impressed by his optimism. No looking back. No bitterness. Just an eagerness to move ahead and make the most of his life. He had such an amazing perspective on life even at that young age. I have a lot to learn from his example.

Over the past few days, I have been listening to the audio recording from Kevin’s funeral and transcribing it so Jody and Sarah can have a written copy. Nate and I don’t go to many funerals, so I don’t have a good basis of comparison, but we both came away from Kevin’s funeral service feeling like it was an absolutely perfect tribute to a great man. I’m glad that my kids will be able to read the talks again when they are older. I’m sure they will all remember their Uncle Kevin, but I want them to understand what an exceptional guy he was and how much he influenced everyone who knew him.

One of Kevin’s friends from college spoke at the funeral and shared this funny story. It is a perfect example of Kevin’s personality and made me (and everyone else) laugh out loud.

I met Kevin my freshman year in college. He was our social coordinator and was always lining us out for barbecues and theme parties such as our annual hippy party; we had a "hat, boots, and shorts party"; we’d float the Boise River in the summer. There was one trip we were talking about last night, floating down the river, and the raft he was riding in got into some willow branches and flipped over. His cousin Curtis shouted "Everyone for Kevin!" We all swam to save Kevin and some of the other folks that were on the river there were trying to help us. Curtis was able to catch Kevin and he was holding him in his arms while we were righting the raft and getting ready. There was a woman there that we didn't know but she asked Kevin if he was OK, and his response was, "I can't feel my legs!" Which put Curtis in an unfortunate position of having to explain that he was already in that condition before he got in the boat. He just had an incredible sense of timing.

That is just so like Kevin.

Nate and I put together a slideshow for the viewing. I think it was therapeutic for both of us. It helped us to see that even though Kevin’s life was cut short, it was a life well-lived.