Jesse George Ricks

On the night of Monday, April 22, I received a phone call. It was a police officer informing me that my little brother, Jesse, had died in a car accident on his way to a job interview in Montana. After the initial shock and emotional cycling between disbelief and grief, we packed and made the arrangements to head to the funeral.

The sadness came in waves for me. At times things felt fairly normal. As long as I could stay busy working on things, I could get along just fine. And there was plenty to work on; the van’s alternator went out on us just 2 hours from our destination, so that we had to deal with that and then spend the night in a motel, but at least it served to keep my mind occupied.

The funeral was Monday, April 29 (see the program here). My mother asked me to give the eulogy (read it here), which was therapeutic for me. I spent several hours preparing for it, but there’s really no way to really prepare for that kind of thing. Jesse will be sorely missed for years to come.

It was nice to be around so much of the family, at least. Carver and Avey put on a good show, and make it hard to be sad for very long. 

Thank you all for your kind sentiments and help over the last two weeks.

#Happenings