Devin's Way, Chapter 3, Aug. 7, 2011

CHAPTER 3

            We made it to the parking lot and the phone rang. It was Lou Denko again.

            “Gary, I hate to do this to you, and this is not the usual way we do this, but I need you to identify Devin. Can I send you an e-mail …”

            I hadn’t thought of this. They still needed a positive I.D.

            “I don’t want to get your hopes up. This is a one in a million chance here, but we can’t do the autopsy until we know for sure …”

            Autopsy? They have to cut up my son?

            Dear God.

            I swallowed hard again.

            “Lou, can we have an open casket?”

            Years earlier I went to see Roman at the funeral home. His casket was closed. What a horrible injustice that must have been for his family. Not only is your son dead, but you can’t even see him.

            “Yes, you can,” Lou said.

            He told me a little bit more about the hours after Devin’s death.

            He had his Renaissance Faire ID on him. The girl who hit him called 911, and so did at least two other people.

            Lou and the police stopped by our house, and thankfully, Devin left the door open. Well, no sense getting mad at him for that one.

            “We figured you guys were out of town,” he said. “We looked through some of the rooms and found a picture of Devin from a water park …”

            The photo was taken a month earlier at Mt. Olympus. It was one of those group family shots they take as soon as you enter the park and then sell to you at the end of the day for a ridiculously high price. I almost hesitated for a second not to buy it, but changed my mind. Truly, it was a gift from God.

            “Devin was wearing the same shirt in the picture that he was wearing when we found him,” Lou said. “We tried finding Ruth and went to Aurora, but they didn’t have a good phone number.”

            After working at Medix, my wife became a registered nurse. She started as an emergency room nurse at Kenosha Hospital and then moved to Aurora Hospital in nearby Racine a few years ago. Lou and the police mistakenly went to an Aurora Hospital in Kenosha. At first we wondered why Lou didn’t just find her cell phone number from his records and call, but realize that wouldn’t be the proper course of notification.

            Lou looked me up on Facebook and saw I made posts everyday about the Wheelchair Games.

            “We figured you were there in Pittsburgh, so we sent the police to your mom’s house.”

            If the Pittsburgh Police came, we don’t know. Mom picked me up early Sunday at the hotel in downtown Pittsburgh, and we only made a brief stop at her home before heading to Kennywood.

            Lou told me the dogs were in their kennels.

            It was now 2:30 p.m. and I was the only one in the family who knew Devin was dead.

            It was on Facebook.

            Oh my God, I thought. I can’t let Ashlie or someone on the camping trip see this on their smart phone.

            I called Paul Kloiber back.

            “Paul, no one else in my family knows! You have to tell everyone who put it up on Facebook to take down the posts!”

            He promised to do his best. Perhaps the only thing worse than finding out over the phone, would be on a social network site.

            My next call was to Bob Klausegger, who until recently, had lived a few doors down from us in our Kenosha neighborhood, before moving a couple miles away.

            Finally, I got a human being and not a voicemail.

            “Helloooo Gary,” he said good-naturedly.

            The words spilled out of my mouth.

            “Bob, Devin was killed. I need you to go to my house and check on the dogs.”

            I can’t imagine how that felt to be on the receiving end.

            “WHAT?!?!?”

            I repeated myself.

            “Bob, I’m out of town in Pittsburgh and Ruth is on a camping trip. Do not call her! She does not know yet! I’m trying to get hold of her!”

            Like so many other people, Bob offered sympathies and was truly distraught. His own sister had been killed by a drunk driver when she was 18 and he was only 16.

            I got in touch with my brother next, and got the same reaction as I did from Bob. He started to cry and my eyes grew damp again, but I blinked them as dry as possible. There was still so much I had to do. I wasn’t supposed to fly out until the next day. I had to get to Mom’s house and change my ticket. I had to get in touch with Ruth. I had to identify Devin. Dear God, I had to look at my son and identify him. Still existing outside my own body, I could not afford to cry.

            I closed my eyes and wished it was all a horrible dream.