Around 2:00am this morning, I lost one of my cousins, Brent. He was struck by a car while walking home from his brother's house. He left behind his mom and dad, brother, sister-in-law, neice, and countless cousins.
Like all of us, he had his share of problems, but had some amazing qualities as well. He graduated at the top of his class with a degree in x-ray technology. At his graduation, we were all so proud of him when he accepted his award. Although he was pretty modest, you could see in his eyes that he was so excited and proud of himself for what he had accomplished.
It's odd what stories you remember most when you look back on someone's life. One that always made me chuckle is a mildly inappropriate one to tell, but I'm going to anyway! :)
This took place a good 12 years or so ago, but I can still remember it pretty clearly. He was very close friends with my brother, so he spent a lot of time at my house. The internet was still pretty new, and not everyone had a myspace page with 12,000 photos of themselves from every angle. Back then (this makes me feel old, by the way) you were lucky to have one photo of yourself to be able to share with your online friends. Anyway, Brent, who was probably about 22 at the time and my brother met two girls from Northern Kentucky (I think). They had talked for a while online and exchanged phone numbers. One day, they got a call from one of the girls saying that she and her friend were a couple of towns away visiting family and wanted to know if they would like to meet. They thought "why not?" and gave them directions to our house. Well, to say the least, they looked nothing like their picture (which turned out to be more like a glamour shot that had been taken many many years ago). You should have seen their reactions when the girls got there.
They decided they'd hang out for an hour or two, the girls would go home and that would be that...lessoned learned. For the lack of anything better to do, they took the girls off-roading on Black Mountain. For those who may not know, Black Mountain is the highest point in Kentucky and its snow accumulations are usually 2-3 times more than at the bottom of the mountain. They drove up there and ended up getting stuck in the middle of nowhere! After realizing they couldn't get it unstuck without some help, they packed up their pride and started hoofing it down the mountain. Luckily a passerby picked them up and gave them a ride home.
Considering it was already dark and too late to get help with their vehicle, the girls ended up having to stay the night. So what the guys tried to make the shortest date ever, turned out to being one of the longest! After coming back home and thawing out, Brent and my brother made them dinner and made the best of the rest of the night. Although they never went out on a second date, they remained friends for a while.
Brent always joked that that was the worst first date ever! It was years before I finally quit teasing him about his "internet girlfriends".
Sorry for telling the world about your embarrassing date, Brent, but I couldn't resist teasing you one last time. We'll miss you!
***Edited to add:
Being a photographer, you'd think that I'd have more pictures of my own family than I do. Since my cousin passed away a few days ago, I've been going through old family photos to help me remember and to share with his family. I'm really sad to say that I didn't find many pictures of Brent. I did find a few snapshots that were probably 8 years old. That's it. If you take nothing else away from reading this blog post, use this experience as a reminder to stop and take a few pictures of those you love. You never know...those snapshots might end up being extremely special one day.
Here are the few that I found...
Brent and myself (terrible picture of me but he never took a bad picture)
He loved his red hat
He also loved fighting with my cat
The current Health Department building used to be Long John Silver's, which my mom used to manage. Brent, myself, his brother, Jake, and my brother, Stevie posed in front of their sign.
