October has been a very hard month. I will never forget Wednesday, October 2. The day Grandpa Kendell somehow crashed on his bike in a canal and passed away.
I sent the kids to the bus about 8:05. I got all my chore and "wet" water clothes on because I needed to go turn off the sprinklers at the field where some of our cows are and I always get sopping wet. (I looked really overdressed for the weather ha ha plus my rubber farm boots) I also had to go move a cow at Mae and Kendells house as well. I remember debating which one to do first. Originally I was going to do the water because I hate that job. If I would have done water first, I would not have come upon the scene. At the last minute I decided to go move the bull first so I wouldn't have to be wet and cold. Im so glad thats what I chose to to instead. When I got to the end of the driveway I saw the kids were still waiting for the bus which was late. I looked at the clock then and it was 8:20. I Said hello to the kids and headed south towards their house. I could see cop lights ahead and figured someone got pulled over which happens regularly out here. As I got closer I saw more cars and figured it was a fender bender. Then I saw Mae's car and she was standing right there and my first thought was they were in a fender bender. She looked up at me and I saw her face and I instantly knew something was wrong. I remember holding my finger out telling her "1 sec i'll be right there." I quickly parked and got out and heard her crying and I ran over and I hugged her and she just sobbed and sobbed and saying "why him he's too young, what am I going to do, he can't leave me" etc. After a minute or two, she calmed down so I was able to get her in the car where she could get warm. I walked over to talk to the cop who explained what happened. I called brian who didn't answer, texted him to call me now not knowing a neighbor had called him 2 minutes before because he was on the scene as an EMT. Brian had just gotten to a hotel for customer meetings and his boss wanted to drive him home because he could see how upset he was but Brian talked him out of it saying he was fine. He took the time on the drive home to call siblings. In the mean time I had called Mike who lives a lot closer and told him what happened, because of dumb cell service out here he didn't hear me that he had passed away. All he heard was accident. I was frantically trying to call Kendells siblings who live in town couldn't get a hold of anyone. Finally got a hold of Lavern and she came right down but same thing she didn't hear me say he had died and found out when she got to where we were. Mae really wanted to go see him and they kept telling us no we shouldn't. I'm glad we took their advice, especially her-it wasn't a gruesome site they said, just traumatic. Anyway, about that time our RS president and her husband who is a cop and lives just 5 doors away from me was jogging and came upon us so he was able to help me and instructed me to get her to her house and have people meet there instead of at the accident so the people could work on getting him out. I drove her down in her car and Kaylene drove my car. I had taken Boey with me so she had to take him home after. Mike got there about 5 minutes after we did and it was just so so sad. Im not sure Mae knows but I talked to police about 11 when I went to get the kids and the coroner still hadn't arrived. I purposely drove all the way around the block so I wouldn't have to drive by knowing he was still there. The medical examiner had to come from SL so I got kids and went home to feed animals and shower and clean up since I looked like an ol farmer lady. I waited until I could see the vehicles all leave and knew they had finally picked him up about noon. (I realized the location is exactly one mile south of my house and one mile north of their house. Right in the middle) All of the unknowns made it really hard that day. Wondering what in the world happened, how long he had been there, did he get hit by a car, have a heart attack, everything was just so confusing and shocking no one could think straight. The next day we were able to have a lot clearer picture even though not positive about what caused him to crash.
All their daughters live out of state so they all came the next day except Suzanne who hopped on a plane that afternoon. They all wanted to go see where it was. We called the gentleman who found him, Wylie. He grew up here and would jog and always made a habit of stopping at this ditch (more like a canal that is at least 7-8 feet down from the road and at least that long across. Out of all the open plain, straight ,softer stretches of road, why was it the only spot in the whole town with a ditch with concrete and rocks and water in the bottom and he crashes right there???? Wylie had moved away to go to school after he got married. He just moved back a couple months ago. He jogs every morning and like his earlier habit, likes to stop and look in the ditch just to look and see how much water or whatnot. The pictures you can see where further back a lot of weeds were overgrown over the water. Thats how it was where he was found. The weeds are clear in the pictures because they moved them to get to him. There is no way anyone could have seen him if they didn't purposefully look. And no way in a car would you be able to see him. If he didn't see him, we might still be out looking for him.
He saw bright blue shoes first, kept looking and saw a bicycle and legs. He instantly recognized the bike and ran down to him. His left leg was under the bike, then the bike, then his right leg on top of his bike. Helmet broke in two, glasses askew, face turned to the side but his mouth and nose where under water. The pictures show a lot of water but there wasn't nearly that much then. His right leg was not wet. He pulled his head up and tried to look for life. He couldn't find any so he ran to the closest house (Spencer and Sara Jacobson) and pounded on the door and told Sara to call 911. Sara helped Wylie move Kendell up on the concrete that comes out under the road where they could try CPR. He was gone at that point. Soon the fire chief showed up and realized the situation was a death not an injury so he called off the ambulance coming and called the medical examiner instead. It was about that time Mae got there. Shortly after is when I arrived.
He had major head trauma which they think it was that that took him instantly on impact or it knocked him out enough that he drowned unconsciously. Wylie said when he lifted his head water drained from his nose and mouth. He had scrapes and bruising/blood pooling in the left side of his face. No sign of struggle or trying to get up. He left the house about 6:20. We still can't decide if he was on his way home or what. So far we know he did not have a heart attack. The death certificate still has not come so we just don't know. Uncle Neal really feels like an animal like a skunk or raccoon came out and he had to swerve to not hit it. That is very possible. I hope he wasn't trying to avoid a car but for him to be where he was he had to have been riding kind of fast. He had a head lamp but it was very faint. We had just given him a really nice LED bright headlamp to wear and he didn't want to wear it to wear it out. His lamp was still shining when Wylie found him.
The past year or so we have trying hard to take note of things and take lots of pictures. The past couple months we decided we were cooking for 7 on Sundays, why not just make it 9 and we have had them over almost every single Sunday for the past couple months. We laughed as he wrestled Kort and tried to prove he could still do a headstand even in church clothes. The last time they were here at our house somehow Mae got talking about how many years they have left and we kept telling her they have lots of years and she said I hope I do and Kendell said "well I don't have any plans of dying anytime soon" That was a week and a half before his accident. These pictures are of the canal. There is a lot of water in the photos but the bottom is just full of rocks and broken pieces of concrete.
It is at least 7-8 feet down from where Brian is standing.
The funeral was Thursday, October 10th. Kort's Birthday. I was planning on throwing him a party then all of this happened so we hurried and planned one for the Tuesday before. He had a lot of kids come and we had a piñata for him and I think he had lots of fun.
In some ways it was a relief to finally have the funeral come. The whole week was so emotional and that was the final thing to happen of the whole event. Tonight Mae, Madeline, and Nathan came over for dinner. Carolynn had come out to bring Dallin to the MTC and Nathan is going to UVU in January so he decided to just stay with Grandma and try to find a job. So anyway, they came and she had shown us on her phone she had found a voicemail from Kendell that he left a month before he died. It was a sweet thing to hear and it seemed like he was right here talking with us. It is a very strange thing to lose someone that you see almost on a daily basis. I've lost Grandparents before but I was a lot closer to my father in law than my grandparents simply because of living so close to him.
The whole month seemed stressful. Rian has had some challenges. She is a senior and has some tough concurrent enrollment classes, working at Maracas, telling the boy she has been seeing that they should end things, leg injury from soccer, and applying to lots of colleges. After two weeks we finally got her BYU application turned in the day before priority deadline. On Halloween Brian and I had to run to UVU to pick up her transcript then hand deliver it to the enrollment office at BYU in order for her to be able to push the submit button. She has been accepted to Dixie, SUU, and UVU. We will see what BYU says then she will make her decision. Her last high school soccer season ended as well. Brian has been coaching the high school team, her club team, as well as Korts club team. Then we do rodeos on the weekends with Kendell. Luckily, no rodeos at all in October but they start up again this month with 3 weekends in a row in St. George.
We were able to have a little fun this month riding horses and the annual Ivanti Halloween Party. Brian and Kort used Grandpas tickets to go to the BYU Boise game. It was hard because all the people sitting around were asking Brian where his dad was and he had to tell them what happened. It was freezing that night but they still enjoyed ice cream, a mint brownie and cougar tail in honor of Grandpa.
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