A year ago this morning, I received a panicked phone call from my wife.  She informed me that my good friend and neighbor Ken Duckworth had been killed in when she termed was a car accident. While still on the phone with her, I pulled up KSL.com and say a news story that indicated that a motorcyclist had been killed on 1300 East earlier that morning when the rider had hit a deer.  They had not released the riders name yet, but I knew instantly that it was Ken. As my wife sobbed on the other end of the line, my heart sank.  A million things went through my mind all at once.  I had only known him for a few years and we had fast become good friends, but for year or so before the accident I had not been able to spend as much time with him and his family that I would have liked. I wouldn't be able to get any of that time back, he was gone.  I thought of his wife and kids and what they must be going through and resolved that no matter what I would do my best to be there for them. Once off of the phone with my wife, I quickly wrapped up what I needed to at work and headed home.  The rest of the week is kind of a blur.  Culminating in the funeral that Saturday.  I was asked to speak.  I've never really had a difficult time speaking in front of crowds.  Having been a Communication major in college it was kind of second nature. That doesn't mean I'm any good at it, it just means that I don't tend to get nervous when I'm asked to do it.  This was different though.  I'm not so sure that I was the best person for the job, but I do know that it allowed me to say Good Bye to a good friend. Not a day has gone by over the past year that I haven't thought about him.  Several times I've gone to Wal*Mart and out of the corner of my eye I've seen someone who looked like him, as I've quickly turned my head and thought "Ken!" I'm of course disappointed when it's not him. I studied quite a bit about the stages of grief and about the Death and the process of Dying in College and what I've learned over the last year is that you can study them all you want, but until you actually experience them, it's really hard to relate and understand. Which oddly enough I found this article in the Salt Lake Tribune that really caused me to think today too. So we continue to think about him and miss him and I don't think that will ever change.

OK, maybe just everyone in my family should know this one. I have a very short list of things that I must have that my wife insists I cannot have. They are:

1. Guns
2. Motorcycles
3. Snakes

Well, I've finally been able to slowly get some guns and while I've not got all of them that I'd like to get yet, we're working on it slowly. After Ken's death last year in a motorcycle accident, I think that my desire to have motorcycles is tempered a bit.  Though honestly, I'm more of an off-road motorcycle type of guy.  I've never really been an Street Bike person, but with her being a Nurse a motorcycle is a motorcycle, it doesn't really matter what surface you're driving it on. So the next thing on my list is a Snake.  One of these days, maybe I'll get to own one, if my wife allows me to.  Well a guy can dream can't he.  OK, 1 out of 3 isn't bad right?

As a kid I always loved halloween.  I was going to do this as my "Costume" this year but I didn't have the time (or desire) to get up early enough to get it done before work. This afternoon for work we went bowling and then were able to go home early.  I'm sure that I'm going to pay for it this weekend, but it was fun while it lasted. This evening, the kids went to the Trunk or Treat at the park across from our house.  Even though I had come home early I ended up needing to finish up a few things for work, so I stayed home. After they were done we went to my parents house.  My sons had spent the night and had helped them decorate their home for Halloween.  This year they had Hot Dogs, chips, homemade Root Beer, cotton candy and of course a large bowl of candy. Our kids went Trick or Treating throughout their neighborhood and we got to see people that we don't get to see very often.  It was a lot of fun. Unfortunately we took our camera but someone managed to not take any photos.  The the one of my daughter below.  She's dressed up as Junie B. Jones - First Grader, which is a favorite amongst the girls in our house.

Thankfully when we got home all of our pumpkins were still in tact on the front porch too.

For some reason I've always been interested in the Coins that the Military and other groups have and trade/give out/collect. I always thought that it was pretty cool to see the different designs and styles. I've got a few Scout coins myself. I received my first when I attended Wood Badge. As we were leaving our Scoutmaster gave us one. I've since then picked up a few others. All of one are Scout coins. The one that isn't a Scout coin was given to me last year at this time. It's a University of Utah Police Department coin and was given to me for my birthday by Ken. It sits on my desk at home and each time I see it I remember different things about him. It's still hard to believe that he's gone. Today is his birthday. Happy Birthday my friend.

My friend and his family are moving to Japan and are selling their home along with many of their posessions. You can see their home here.  If you're interested, let me know and I can put you in contact with him.

When I was in Bear Lake last week we stopped off to get some Raspberry (well, I had Strawberry, surprise, surprise).  On the wall they have collected patches and business cards from various Police, Fire and Military personnel. A few years ago, our Scout Troop had gone to Bear Lake Aquatics for their Summer Camp and they had apparently gone to this place the same purpose that I did. While there Ken had left his card on the wall.  It was a neat experience to see the little signs of where he had been and things that he had done. I took the photo below with my cell (which is why it isn't the greatest photo) intending to post this very post, but had forgotten about the photo until now.

It's only been a couple of months and we all still miss him very much, but it's little things like this that will keep his memory alive.

I found this site while browsing around this week.

I use Instant Messaging a lot.  In fact, if you ever want to contact me and reach me the quickest, Instant Messaging is probably the way to go. I use Trillian because I can combine all of my accounts into one application and it works fine for me.  I have to sacrifice some functionality but that's fine with me. Rarely do I actually log into the native (MSN Messenger, AIM, Yahoo! IM) client.  In fact, I only have MSN Messenger installed on my computers. Today I was looking for an option in Trillian that I couldn't find, but I knew that it was in MSN, so I fired up MSN and logged in. One of the features that Trillian doesn't have is the ability to deliver messages that were sent to you when you're offline. As soon as I logged in to MSN Messenger a message window popped up.  It was a message from Ken that was sent to me back in May.  We had been having a conversation and he was sending me the answer to a question that I had asked him. It's just really strange seeing a new message from a friend who isn't with us anymore.

Today during Sacrament Meeting, I had taken one of my children out into the foyer and was standing there speaking with someone.  While there I saw someone approaching out of the corner of my left eye (you know the one that's basically blind, no really it is).  He was holding a child that had his head on his Dad's should.  A sight that you see a million times a day in an LDS meetinghouse. I quickly turned to face the person approaching, because my immediate thought was "Hey, it's Ken".  Obviously, I was wrong and it was not him.  I realize that this is probably going to happen many more times to a lot of people, but it still doesn't make it any easier. Another thought that I had today (while not entirely doctrinally correct) is "I wonder how Ken is doing in his new Ward.  He's probably already met and befriended everyone there".

Today I did probably one of the most difficult things I've ever done.  I kind of blabbered my way through it, but I was able to say that things that I wanted to say. Compared to what our friends have been through this week though, this was nothing. I'm exhausted emotionally, mentally and physically, but we carry on, that's what Ken would have wanted us to have done.