What was Kevin like as a boy and young man?
In elementary and junior high he had a reputation of befriending challenged kids. One of the kids he befriended was in a wheelchair. The boy's name was David. He would push David around the school in his wheelchair.
David's mom would drop him off at our house. The wheelchair stayed at the front door. Kevin would drag him around or he would crawl until he was exhausted. David was filthy by the end of the day, but he had fun.
As Kevin grew older, he had a habit of stopping and helping people beside the road. He would often come home and tell me about stopping and helping someone on the road that, honestly, scared me to death.
Can you talk about what you felt the night of and morning after finding about Kevin's death?
Kevin had just moved out on his own that day. I honestly didn’t want him to move out as we had never had a problem with him. I didn’t want him to get in over his head financially as I had just cosigned a loan for a new truck. As it turns out, Kevin wouldn’t live long enough to make a single payment on that truck.
His friends decided to throw a house warming party for him. Sometime around midnight, he started doing shots. He passed out a short time later. His friends laid him in his bed, on his side, in case he vomited. They also went back in to his room and shaved his head and legs while he was passed out. His friend, Craig, was concerned so he went back in to check on him around 4:00 AM. The first calls to 911 were “difficulty breathing”, the next were “not breathing.” Kevin was pronounced dead alone in a hospital while I slept peacefully in my bed.
The next morning, Gilbert police came to my house. I didn’t think much of it. I figured it probably had something to do with a neighbor, a dog or something along those lines. They told us there had been an accident and your son is dead. They then handed me his driver’s license. There is something pretty final about it when a police officer tells you your son is dead and hands you his driver’s license, because until the officer handed me his drivers license, I was convinced this was all a big mistake, but when they hand you your child’s drivers license, you know he’s gone and he’s not coming back.
What led you to take this walk, and why Montana?
One of the things I knew early on was that I didn’t want to be known as a victim—the world already has plenty of them. I also knew that the most I could hope for was to make “something very good” come from this tragedy.
As one would expect, we struggled with what to do with Kevin’s ashes.
I grew up in Kalispell, Montana and Kevin always talked about wanting to move there someday and buy a ranch. One of Kevin’s favorite movies was Lonesome Dove. I won’t give away the ending of that movie, because I think everyone should see it, but suffice to say that is where I got the idea.
I decided I was going to put his ashes in my backpack and walk from Arizona to Montana. I partnered with NotMYkid who financed the effort and organized all the speaking engagements. I shared Kevin’s story with over 10,000 students along the way.
