This Post is for Darrell

I've lived a very fortunate existence. None of my close friends ever passed away. A childhood friend who I'd grown distant from passed away on my 18th birthday, but my existence has been free from the grief of death. None of my close family ever passed away either. For all my life travels, for all our crazy homes, for all the summers coming back to the States (and not coming back for the other 10 months), and for all our rather dangerous vacations, my family sort of stugs sadly and say, "well, at least no one died."

Sadly though, my family has come to deal with death. On 14 August 2010, my Uncle Darrell Hercyk passed away in his sleep from what appears to be sleep apnea. He was 51 years old, living in St George Utah with his wife Julie, and 8-year-old daughter Jessie, working for SkyWest. Darrell still holds many athletic records at Haverling High School in Bath NY, he was an artist deeply inspired by both Dutch Renaissance painting and the Native American art of the Utah West.

Darrell lived in Utah over 15 years so we didn't see him much, though we received many pictures of my cousin Jessie who looks just like him. I feel we might have been better friends because he went through a serious biking phase in his mid-20s before an old lady yanked out of her driveway while he was flying down a rural road, effectively landing him in the hospital and ending his extreme sports days. It was a long time ago though, and Darrell had moved onto family life, minus the mini-van. My family was looking forward his next visit to New York in early-September for another family wedding. It's a difficult time for everyone, and I suppose we're all still in shock as we wrap our minds around the sudden tragedy. "One minute they're there, and the next they're gone." I'd heard this phrase a thousand times. But suddenly it became real, and that's tragic.

So this post is for Darrell, because he made our lives better, and because without him, my family just isn't the same.