Roderick's Life Is His Testimony

I don’t remember where I was going but I remember I was on the stairs when this thought hit me “the story of John the Baptist, that’s my answer”.  It wasn’t an audible voice but it was a very strong and very definite thought.  I had prayed when I found Roderick that morning and God gave me the answer.

   That thought had such impact on me that it’s etched in the wall of my brain like bold black lettering on a white wall. 

   When I saw Roderick’s body lifeless and I faced the death of my son all I could see in that moment was his own gun beside him and his life gone.  The only thing I could think was that he shot himself. I immediately began to doubt if Roderick’s life had been a lie and if what we had experienced with him had been a cover-up.

   When John the Baptist was in prison facing death.  He began to doubt if Jesus the Messiah, the one he himself had preached about, was a lie and a cover-up.  So he sent his disciples to Jesus to ask whether He was in fact the Messiah that should come or if he should look for the Messiah in someone else. 

   Jesus answer to John the Baptist was, “Go back and report to John what you hear and see” Matthew 11:4.  John the Baptist knew about the miracles Jesus did but he needed to be reminded what to look for.  Jesus’s life was His testimony, which was all John the Baptist needed to know.

   Roderick’s life is also his testimony.  His actions, the things he did, tell his story.  He was who I knew him to be and I needed to be reminded of that.  Now it’s true that a person can live a lie at times but you can always look past that lie to the fruit they bear.  You can identify them by their fruit, that is, by the way they act. Can you pick grapes from thorn bushes, or figs from thistles? Mathew 7:16.  It is impossible to pretend to be an apple tree and bear apples.  If a tree grows apples it is in fact an apple tree, plain and simple.

   
   Roderick was a kid full of energy that lived life to the fullest (that last phrase I’ve stolen from his friends) and he smiled all the time.  His hockey manager called it a contagious smile.  Roderick was at times frustrated at himself that he could never keep a straight face when he tried to trick someone.  Roderick had many friends and his friends always knew he had their back.

   Roderick’s friends have been an inspiration to me.  They speak of Roderick with such admiration and confidence.  They are also in part an answer to my prayer.

   Roderick was known to encourage friends who felt alone or friendless.  He was everybody’s friend.  On several occasions I overheard him speak up in defence of a new kid or shy kid when with friends.

   The one thing that has really blessed both Jake and me is that the last several months of Roderick’s life were the best of his life.  On several occasions Jake and I had talked about how Roderick was maturing, him and his brother didn’t have much conflict anymore; he loved and paid attention to his sister.  He accepted our decisions without a fight and he often discussed business and how to invest and prosper in life.  It is such a blessing not to have to look back with regret but to have had those wonderful months with him in the end.

   Over the last several months Roderick and I had several meaningful discussions.  One of the discussions I had with him was the Saturday two weeks before the accident.  Roderick was having a snack before bedtime and I was in the kitchen with him.   That week he had a play-off game and made a bad mistake.  He was the only player in his own zone with the puck and passed the puck by mistake to an opposing player at the blue line, who took the puck and scored a quick unassisted goal for the opposing team.  Roderick was very frustrated with that mistake.  I encouraged him to shake it off and get over it when he played the following game on Sunday, and then I shared with him a study that I had just heard about on the radio.  It said that 90% of senior businesswomen had played sports growing up and half of those at a competitive level like college.  But the interesting point was that their success was not attributed so much to having learned to win but rather having learned to loose. 

   I said “Roderick, if there’s one thing you have learned in life it is to loose.  You have never been on a team since we moved to the city that has made it to the finals, (yet he always played with passion and gave it 100%).  Not only in sports but school has been a rough ride for you, you have been knocked down on several occasions but you refuse to stay down, you just get up and keep going.  If learning to loose makes you successful then you will do well in life”.

   I could just see by that pleasant smile on his face that he was ready to take it on again and by the comments he made that he was going to give it his all. 

   I had sold a couple dogs for him that Friday but had not given him the cash because I was going to deposit it for him.  That Sunday morning he asked for some of that cash so he could tithe and we went to church as a family, he seemed especially happy took part in praise and worship and from church we went to his hockey game.  His team won that game and Roderick had one of his most successful games that day.  It was his last winning game here on earth.  He said with pride after the game “the coach wouldn’t let me come off the ice the last couple minutes”.  (Thanks Coach!) He loved it when he was given lots of ice time as all players do. 

Our Story

  

 

 March 14, 2016 started like any normal Monday morning for Jake and me.  I got up shortly after 6, went downstairs to start a pot of coffee. I took some quiet time for prayer and devotions.  It didn’t take long until Jake joined me in the living room with a cup of coffee for his own devotion time.

   At 7:00 am I got up to start the children’s lunches for school but went downstairs to get the boys up first, knowing that Jake would soon get up and wake Angeline up before he headed to the office.  I walked into Tyler’s room, switched on the light, said good morning and told him to wake up.  I left Tyler's room and walked to the room right beside to wake up Roderick.  As I opened the door there was a hockey stick blocking the door.

   “Why do you have a stick blocking the door?” I said.

   I removed it so I could open the door and walk in.  I saw Roderick stretched out on the floor, “why is he sleeping on the floor? Is he hot?” I thought as my gaze made it around the door to where his head was.  When I saw his face, I knew instantly something was wrong.  My thought was “this kid is sick, he probably got out of bed to go for help and fell.  Is he still alive?” 

   I knelt quickly to feel his body and check what was wrong.  This is where I want to stop and not continue the story.  I have a hard time admitting that it was us, Roderick’s own parents, who thought he had committed suicide when he was such a happy son full of life and energy and as his friends keep saying, “he lived life to the fullest”.  Roderick did not live life from the sidelines as so many people do; he jumped in and lived it himself.  But I cannot change what happened and this is the story.

   As I knelt down my eyes landed on the gun beside Roderick’s body with the barrel pressing into his throat, a puddle of blood under his head, and blood sprayed against the wall.  That’s when it hit me, “my son shot himself”.  How is that possible?  What kind of a horrible hell was he living in and how could I have no idea.  He seemed so happy and was really starting to make mature choices planning for his future. 

   I got up, turned around and let out a scream, which sent my husband running into the basement from his place still on the couch. 

   As I walked out of Roderick’s room I met Jake. 

   “What’s wrong?” he asked. 

   I said, “he’s gone”. 

   He did not understand. 

Angeline took this picture not long before the accident,
Roderick is sitting at the same spot wearing the same clothes
he did that last night when we said good night to him.

   “Roderick” I said. 

   He still had no idea what my scream had been about but when I said “Roderick” he walked into Roderick’s room to check.  

   He yelled “no, no this isn’t possible, what have we done? This isn’t possible”.

   Tyler came out of his room to see what was going on.  We told him Roderick is gone but it was to much for him to believe, we told him that Roderick had shot himself, he still didn't seem to get it finally he took off walking into Roderick’s room as if to check for himself what was going on but stopped short when he saw the blood underneath the door and turned around. 
   "Why would he do that?" he asked.
   "We don't know" we answered, "Did he say anything to you?"
   "No"

   “I heard the gunshot,” Tyler told us later.

   “You did?”

   “Yes, I heard a bang and called ‘Roderick are you ok’ but everything was quiet so I thought something must have fallen,” Tyler said.

   I walked back into that room one more time to make sure it was true and prayed, “God, I may never know what exactly happened in this room this night but I’m going to need some answers”.  God gave me peace that we would find answers and we would be comforted.

   Jake called 911 and told the lady on the line “my son committed suicide”. 

   In about 10 minutes the ambulance arrived followed in a few minutes by the police.  We showed them downstairs into Roderick’s room. 

   The ambulance driver was back in just a few minutes and looked at us.  Jake simply said, “he’s gone” she nodded and said, “I’m sorry” and soon left.

   The police officers were incredibly sensitive.  After looking at the situation downstairs they had to question everyone in the house.

   They asked questions like “Did Roderick have addictions?”

   “No,” in fact he had strong convictions against smoking, drinking or drugs.

   “What was his Mark on his report card?”

   “In the seventies.”

   “That’s a good Mark.”

   I wasn’t sure that was so good but it was obvious the police were impressed, that was not the kind of mark they would see in suicides.

   “I’m a police officer, I know a gun like this is loud, you didn’t hear it?” the officer asked.

   “No, we sleep on the second level above the car garage but Tyler did” I answered.

   Roderick’s room is in the total opposite end of the house in the basement but still that is a question we have too, how come did we not hear it, both me and Jake weren’t sleeping too well that night due to having so much coffee at a family gathering the day before.  It was obvious that Roderick’s body had been lifeless for quite some time. 

   After questioning they walked back into Roderick’s room and one of them soon came back up.

   “We believe it was an accident,” he said.

   Such a flood of relief went over us, but then reality struck once again.  Roderick is still gone. 

   By this time family had started arriving and the news spread like wild fire.  Up until this point it had been said that Roderick had committed suicide. 

   Now I was beginning to feel guilty.  Why did we even think such a thing, Roderick was such a happy kid and had never dealt with depression.

   Our Youth Pastor, Pastor Jono also arrived around this time.  We didn’t even have to call him, he heard the news and came right over.  He was such a comfort, when he got here he took over, talked to the police, arranged a cleaner for us, arranged a meeting with the funeral director and of course comforted and prayed with us.  His confidence in it having to have been an accident was such a support during that time of doubt.  He said, “Suicides always have symptoms”. 

   Our church was incredible in loving and supporting us; also they took care of the whole service, food and everything.  They did it all for us.  We always knew we belonged to a great church but did we ever feel it now. 

   Before the Police left, they talked to us one more time and wanted to confirm again that it seemed to have been a tragic accident.  They had originally thought the shot had gone into his throat but it had actually gone into his left eye.  The reason for this mistake was Roderick's body lay with his right arm up and the outside of his hand right over his left eye so we could not see the wound.

   I should confirm here that Roderick had taken a gun safety course and had a firearm license.

   All we can do is speculate what could have happened.  So many times Jake has stood in that room and looked it over and over trying to figure out what happened.  It’s quite obvious that he must have looked into the barrel, also by the way Roderick’s body lay, where the gun was and where his phone lay, he must have had the gun in his left hand and his phone in his right hand.  We know the gun had issues with jamming.  Could he not sleep (which was common for him) and did he decide to get up and see if he could fix the gun?  He had done this once before and taken the gun completely apart, Jake had to help him put it back together later.

   Later we learned that two of his friends had texted with him until late that night, his last text was sent at 12:15.  Roderick had been his normal self.  Once we had access to his phone the texts confirmed that it was exactly as his friends said. 

I could share a lot of things about Tyler starting when he was very young but let me just start by saying that Tyler struggled with low self esteem.  After Roderick went to heaven Tyler was very sensitive and wanted to do stuff with us.  I think he realized how precious family is.  But then he sunk into this sadness, he rarely smiled and didn’t say much other then what he needed to say in everyday life. He always had his group of friends though, he never felt that he had no friends, but he spent a lot of time by himself doing his own thing.

In the spring of 2017, Tyler started coming out of his shell.  Wanting to have friends over, building a tree house with dad etc.  That summer he did a lot of biking, His friend and he would meet halfway and bike to either one of their houses and hang out.  This is what I posted not long before Tyler passed away and I quote “One day Tyler comes to Jake and me and out of the blue says, “we should get a pool”.  He added that he wanted to start having friends over more often and it would be nice to have a pool.  That same day Angeline comes and says the same thing without knowing that Tyler had brought it up.  Not to long after that Tyler said we should get a tree house built, that should be our project for the summer, so as a family we started dreaming about it.  We discussed whether it would be wise to build a pool unto this yard because it doesn’t raise the value of the property.  We bought an old house six years ago and renovated it but it hadn’t ever really been our intention to make this a long-term home, this was just what we could afford at that time.  So we started looking for a house and enjoyed dreaming as a family again.  We bought a house in September.  This will stretch us financially and even though we are big on financial freedom I think it will be good for us to work hard to get ahead financially.  We needed a kick in the butt to say get up, work hard, make it work, start dreaming again, and have a reason to plan. We still struggle with dreaming and planning many times but we are excited about moving in February and it is great to dream again.”  I feel like Tyler was the one who got us dreaming again.

I was looking forward to the school year and so was he, I was sure things would be different now but only a week or two into the school year I could sense a heaviness on him and I sensed it wasn’t going as well as he had hoped.  I started to pray earnestly for him. 

Not long after that he shared with me that he thought he had social anxiety, he had researched it online and there was medication he could get for that.  I didn’t think he needed medication, I thought he just needed to realize that it wasn’t easy to socialize after having withdrawn himself for so long but I also thought this would be an opportunity to get him into counseling and then maybe he would be able to open up and talk about his brother’s death as well. 

The family doctor agreed with me and so he started counseling.  At this time, I started setting aside one day a week to fast and pray for him.  Every time I took him to counseling, I prayed that God would do a miracle and that Tyler would see he could beat this without medication.  Looking back now I’m not even sure why that was so important to me.  After only a few sessions the counselor suggested using a bit of medication and asked how I felt about it.  I said I wanted to do what he thought was best.  I would have liked to do it without medication.  He asked Tyler if we could try to go without it a couple more weeks.  Tyler agreed. 

Two weeks later, still hoping God would do that miracle, I asked him if he still felt he needed medication.  He looked at me and then looked down and said, “I’m good with what you want mom” but he had the most defeated look on his face as if there was no help for him and I decided at that moment that I would agree to medication.  I said “God, I prayed for a miracle and it didn’t happen so now I go forward believing that medication is your plan”.

On December 11, he had his last appointment with the counselor.  He was doing so well; he had already gone to a movie with a group of friends including some he hadn’t hung out with before and was planning a Christmas party with his friends that Friday where they wanted to decorate gingerbread houses and other activities.  The counselor agreed that he was doing so well he didn’t need another appointment.

That Thursday he seemed down, he had to postpone the Christmas party because there were too many of his friends that couldn’t make it, that wouldn’t usually bother him though, and he said it didn’t.  That same week he also said he would like to start taking his medication in the evening because he felt like it took until lunch before it worked.  I was surprised because I thought he was doing so well but the doctor had said it didn’t matter if he took it in the morning or evening, so I didn’t really care.  I started giving it to him just before bed.  The following day he came home from school looking unusually tired.  I asked him what was wrong, he said he was fine. 

Tyler fell asleep doing homework, this was one of the three
days he came home so tired

 He lay down on the couch and fell asleep. This happened three days in a row and then he said he wanted to go back to taking his medication in the morning, this isn't working, he said: so we did.  Whether his tiredness was due to the medication or not I don’t know. 

After that he seemed more himself although I could tell he wasn’t back to where he had been.  On Tuesday he asked to stay after school to watch the drama class practice I said he could but then he’d have to come to Angeline’s hockey game because I didn’t have time to drive him home in between.  He was fine with that.  He watched Angeline’s game, Angeline scored in that game, it was special that Tyler got to watch her score a goal.  He didn’t come to her games much.  When we got home Angeline excitedly showed off the Christmas sweater, she had gotten for the Christmas event the following day at school.  Tyler said he wanted one too.  Angeline said they got all four of us one.  He liked one of them and I thought it would look so great with his olive pants.  I was so excited.  We had our Tyler back.  It was a long time since he’d been excited to dress up for something.  The next morning, he didn’t come up dressed for the event though, I could tell the excitement of the night before was gone but I didn’t make a big deal of it.

After school when Tyler got into the car, I asked him how the Christmas event had been he said good. Then he asked if we could go pick up helium for the Christmas Party.  He said he was planning to have the party on the 28^th or 29^th now.  I asked, “right now?”  He said yea.  I didn’t mind, we bought helium before and I was impressed that he wanted to go shopping with Angeline and me.  He’d usually just want me to pick stuff up for him.  The three of us went to the party store to buy the helium and went home.

When we got home, he had a big plate of food.  Jake, Angeline and I watched Survivor downstairs while he was on the computer in the room beside us, what he was doing I don’t know but when we went upstairs, he soon came up with his blanket.  That was strange.  I asked him what he wanted with his blanket it was really time for bed.  He said he wanted to sleep upstairs this night, I asked what he had said but then he said, “I’m cold downstairs I just want to lay down on the couch and warm up then I’ll go to bed”.  I puzzled a bit over the fact that he changed his answer and what he had originally meant.  Jake asked him if he wasn’t feeling well, if he should make him a citron.  He said he was fine.  I made him a mint tea and brought it to him, I often did that for him before bed and asked him again if he wasn’t feeling well and if he wanted an Advil.  He said again he was fine he would just warm up and then go to bed downstairs.  Jake and I said good night and went to bed. 

Not long after that we heard Tina (our niece who lived with us) come in, she had worked a late shift.  Then we heard Tyler get up and I heard him go to the broom closet and open some drawers in the cabinet then went downstairs and I fell asleep.  Tina later told us when she came in, he had seemed completely relaxed on the couch and had said hi. 

She went downstairs and got ready to shower when she came out of her room Tyler and her had both been on the way into the bathroom and Tyler had said she could use it first.  After she was done she heard Tyler go in and then go back to his room, she had seen that the light in his room was still on so she knew he hadn’t gone to bed.  She got ready for bed when she heard what sounded like loud breathing.  She got up and put her ear to her door to listen but then had concluded that he must have been very tired and fallen asleep with the lights on and was now snoring.  This was around 11:30. 

December 21 started like any other Thursday morning.  I got up a bit later then usual close to 6:30 and made a pot of coffee.  I was going to spend some time for devotions but after a little bit decided to go switch on Tyler’s light so he could wake up slowly.  I usually wake the kids up at 7 but Tyler had recently asked to wake him up a bit earlier, so he had a little extra time to get ready.  I walked downstairs and noticed that all the lights had been left on, which was strange.  Then I glanced over at Tyler’s bedroom and saw the door was open and the lights were on so he must have gone to shower already.  I glanced over to the washroom and saw the door was open, he wasn’t in the shower, then I went to check out his room.  It was empty, now my heart was starting to pound, I felt like another nightmare was beginning, the only problem, I couldn’t wake up from it, I was already fully awake. 

Since Roderick’s passing if anything isn’t quite normal in the morning, we always had to really be careful that we didn’t panic right away so I told myself, he’s going to be OK, he can’t just disappear.  I glanced over at his computer room, which used to be Roderick’s bedroom and saw the lights were on, but the door was closed, so he must be in that room.  I walked over to the door and the door was locked, this was strange, Tyler never locks his doors.  I called him but he didn’t answer.  I figured he must have fallen asleep, so I called louder.  I went back upstairs to get something to unlock the door knowing that was not the easiest door to unlock.  I debated if I should tell Jake, but I thought “no reason to panic, he must have fallen asleep in his computer room, he wasn’t the easiest kid to wake up.

I went back downstairs to try and unlock the door but couldn’t seem to do it.  I banged on the door louder and more desperate by now pleading, “Please Tyler answer me, I need to know that you’re OK”.  No answer.  I went back up to find something else to unlock the door, while I was searching Jake finally made his way downstairs and he noted right away from my face that something was wrong.  I told him “Tyler is in his computer room and the door is locked”. 

Jake walked straight downstairs while I continued to look for something to unlock the door.  I was interrupted by a scream from Jake “No! No! not again”.  I knew what that meant.  The door was unlocked so I guess my first attempt worked I just didn’t realize it, but Jake said he had been ready to break down the door if need be. 

I ran downstairs and found Tyler lying on the floor fully dressed, his head on a bean back and a helium tank beside him.  When I saw his face, I knew he was gone, his spirit had left his body.  Jake found him there with a garbage bag over his head and a hose from the helium tank into the bag.  Of course, Jake’s instinctive reaction was to jerk the bag off to see if Tyler was okay.  I was only barely downstairs, when I heard my daughter calling from the main floor “What happened?”  Jake’s scream woke her up.  I ran back up to her as quickly as I could.  Our niece Tina lived with us and also came out of her room to see what was going on.

I told Angeline what happened, and we went into the living room.  Jake came back up too. 

Angeline said, “this can’t be true, are you sure, did you call him?’

I went back downstairs, and Jake and Angeline followed me.  I called “Tyler come; Tyler come back” “God can you bring him back?”  I believe Jake called him yet too.  

Even though I had no idea that Tyler was suicidal with the realization that he had obviously been hurting far more then I had ever known came also this peace that he was now free and at peace. 

That first night we were at my sister’s house and Jake and I kind of just lay in bed and tried to rest, we would doze off every so often.  Once when Jake dozed off, he had this labored breathing and I woke him up thinking he had a nightmare.  He said, “I had a beautiful dream’ and told me about it.  He dreamed that Tyler had come back to life and wanted to celebrate with his friends that he was alive.  I loved it when Jake had these beautiful dreams.  Twice he had beautiful dreams about Roderick and that was always a precious gift from God.  To think the very first night God gave him a dream even though he was barely sleeping at all was very comforting and truly could only be from a very caring, loving God.  I hadn’t had dreams like that, I felt that was okay because we each had our own ways of receiving comfort and obviously God knew that Jake was the one who needed it. 

Later that night though, I woke up with a dream.  In my dream Tyler got into the back of the car, I was in the driver seat and I turned my head to look at him.  He asked me to drop him off at Teo’s house because his friends were together there.  We both knew that he had died and so I told him that he knew I couldn’t do that.  He said “I know” then I said look at me and he looked at me for several long moments and I woke up.  I told Jake my dream.  Later I found out that Tyler’s friends had been together at Teo’s house and that to me was even greater confirmation that these dreams were no coincidence but truly came from God.

I felt peace about the fact that Tyler was now free in heaven but the trauma so soon after Roderick went to heaven was almost more then our emotions and bodies could handle.  It was basically déjà vu, like the morning that we found Roderick was replayed with Tyler.  Jake and I could not see how we could go through this again.  It just seemed so impossible, those first five days we’d just cry in each other’s arms at times.  Also, we could not bare the nights.  Our bodies would just tense up in fear.  We just knew that something had happened to Angeline, our spirits knew that it wasn’t true, but it was like our mind or emotions refused to believe it.  We’d go check on Angeline and sometimes I’d just sit with her.  The amazing thing was that she could sleep.  She rarely noticed me coming in.  Other times we were too afraid to get up and go check.  We just lay in bed all tense. 

The 26^th in the morning I woke up at 3:00 and again I felt so tense and so scared.  I couldn’t get myself to go check on Angeline I just lay there almost trembling in fear, so tense was I.  At 5:00 I had enough, I got up and went to check on Angeline, when I went back to my bed, I felt my body relax and I felt a peace replace that fear.  I just lay in bed so relaxed and peaceful.  I was still awake at 6:00, Jake was awake by that time too.

 I don’t know when I fell back asleep but at 7:00 I woke up from this beautiful dream.  I dreamed that a lot of us loved ones were around a coffin and Tyler's body was in the coffin.  I remember he still wore the same clothes he was in when he passed away. Tyler got up and came to my side.  He commented on how much he loved all of us and I got all excited and grabbed him by the arms and said, “Do you want to stay? You can still stay!”  He put his arms around me and started to sob, then he said he wanted to go, Jesus had called him three times and He loved him very much.  I was so happy for him and never hesitated a moment, I just told him to go, “when I get there we will talk, and it will be like we have never been separated” I said and woke up.  I so clearly recall the joy I felt in letting him go to heaven and I truly felt it would only be a short time until I’d be there with him.  I started to cry and told Jake the dream, I knew then that we could do this.  I told Jake God really cares for us and he has a purpose for us.  For two months that fear was gone in the night.  I have later still struggled with anxiety a lot, but I now know we can do this.  I will not be surprised when I get to heaven if I will find out that Tyler told Jesus he needed to tell his mom and that God allowed him to come back in a dream to tell me.

Christmas 2015

Christmas 2017
Wearing the sweaters Jake bought just
before Tyler left for heaven

Christmas 2016

Eulogies by Mom & Dad

Eulogy by Roderick's mom

Can I have a Hot chocolate? It was almost like Roderick thought that was the way to greet me when he saw me. Roderick was such a gift from God and we were so excited when he was born.  I remember the excitement when we could finally take our firstborn home, we had been dreaming about this day for a while.  He started walking at 10 months of age, or should I say started running.  He never slowed down.  Roderick had a high level of energy, which served him well in so many ways, but it also caused him to act before he thought at times. I’ll never forget at the age of 2 when Roderick had to sit for a time out, he looked into my eyes and said, “I don’t want to be bad, it just happens”. There was always a special bond between Roderick and I, and he knew that we would always be there for him. Even though he was a strong, tough young man, he relied on us to help guide him, pray for him, and support him through any difficulties life threw at him. When he fell, he never stayed down, but got up with his usual energy and that wonderful smile.

Roderick loved his brother and sister.  He thought it was his job to make them tough and he seemed to truly believe they would thank him for it someday.  He loved Tyler and Angeline, and always wanted the best for each of them. 

Roderick started playing hockey at age 5 and he loved the game.  It was such a good way for him to use up his energy.  We had never been into sports, so that first year we watched him but half the time didn’t know what was going on or why the whistle blew.  Hockey has become so much a part of our lives.  We love watching Roderick play. He was passionate about the game, and always gave 100%. He never complained about his coaches, but respected and appreciated them, and did whatever they asked. He loved his team, and always had their back. Friendships were important to Roderick, and he was fiercely loyal.

Roderick was so excited when he got his learners, wherever we needed to go he wanted to take the wheel.  We have a car that we aren’t using but wanted to insure as soon as Roderick got his drivers license. Last Saturday he boosted that car, brought it into the car garage, cleaned it and filled it up with gas. We asked him why he did that, as it would be months until he would get his driver’s license. He said, I have nothing to do and I just want it to be ready.  On Sunday he had a job interview and he was so excited, he told all the friends he had contact with that day about the interview. 

He was so excited about the trip to a poultry convention we were going to take him on this week.  He was telling his friends he was going to a poultry convention and then his dad was letting him take over half of the farm. He told me it was so funny because his friends actually believed him. 

Sunday night I went down to say good night to Roderick and he asked for a hot chocolate, I was about to refuse but then said sure I’ll bring you a hot chocolate.  I made him one, said good night and went to bed, not knowing that would be my last moment with him. 

Roderick’s tragic passing has left a hole in our lives, as he was such an important part of it. It will only be our faith in God that will help us carry on, but we know without a shadow of doubt, that we will see our beloved son again. He is now with our Savior to whom he gave his life to at a young age, and continued to follow throughout his life.

We want to thank you all for your amazing support, and for making Roderick’s life such a happy one.  We feel so blessed and loved by our family and so many friends.  All the food and flowers and gifts, its beyond words.  Thank you and God bless you!

Eulogy by Roderick's Dad

Dear beloved son Roderick 

I don't know where to start; there are so many memories of you.

It seems only a few short years ago that you were born. I remember the proud feelings of becoming a daddy. It was indescribable. I got you smiling the very first day in the hospital, and that smile just kept getting bigger and more effective. 

Two years later you had a baby brother and you were so proud taking care of your brother. Eighteen months later you had a sister. You showed so much loving care to them.

Living on the farm gave me the opportunity to take you to work at a very young age, you wanted to do everything daddy was doing, and at one point I was a bit concerned that the chickens had to much of an influence on you when I caught you drinking water from the chickens’ water drinker:)

When you were 3 months old I started taking you to Winnipeg hauling eggs and I remember the looks I got from some moms walking into the restaurant with a 3-month-old baby in a car seat, but I was thinking “O yea! This is my boy”.

It didn't take long for us to realize that you were full of energy, in our opinion at times too much. You were eager to start walking. One day I heard something at the other end of the house. My first thought was “Roderick fell”.  I ran to check on you and you met me with a huge smile and said daddy Look! I stood there watching a 10-month-old kid climbing onto the freezer and jumping down. 

You had big dreams at a very young age; you built what you called your clubhouse when you were 5 years old.  It had everything from curtains to tool shelves. You painted it bright blue and orange. Sometimes that's where I would find my tools.

Having friends over was always a highlight for you, which will be another thing we will greatly miss, having your friends over!  I hope they don’t stop coming.

You wanted to call me old man at times, I did not allow it but when I turned forty you said I could no longer forbid you because now it was a fact.

I drove you to hockey so many times.  Many times nothing was said on the way but I look back now and cherish time spent with you.  One thing you asked every time though, “Can we stop by Tim’s?”  I will miss buying Tim’s for you.

You were a lot of work but we always saw greatness in you and could not wait to see what you would become.  We knew it would be worth all the work.  You had certain morals and you stuck by them.  You were determined to do what is right.

Sunday night I went downstairs.  “Goodnight Son, I love you”, I said.  And you replied, “Good night dad, I Love you too”.  I did not realize that would be for the last time.

Good-bye Son and see you in Heaven!