May 20, 2006
I was relieved to leave the hospital. The doctors were confident in my progress and assured me the metal still lodged in my body wouldn’t shift or cause further harm. I had to keep a bandage over my right eye. It was uncomfortable, but I could live with it.
What scared me far more than my injuries was the idea of a life without my parents. I couldn’t imagine a future where they weren’t part of it. In the hospital, survival had been the only goal. Once I left, there was nothing left to distract me from what came next. Every attempt to think ahead collapsed almost immediately. My mind kept circling back to the farm. The house wasn’t finished. There was still so much work to do. Work, at least, was something I knew how to handle.
The days that followed blur together. The pain medication dulled everything—time, memory, even emotion. Over the years, fragments have come back. Certain moments lodged themselves deep enough that they never fully left. Those are the ones I still carry.
My dad’s cousin Tina and her husband Scott opened their cottage on Cheat Lake to my brother and me. It was better than a hotel, but more importantly, no one knew where it was. We had privacy. I spent most of my time sitting quietly while plans were made around me. I wasn’t checked out. I was leaning on my faith. I was leaning on my brother. I also felt a responsibility to the friends and family who were grieving—to help carry some of that weight so none of us had to carry it alone.
The Viewing: Private
Part of the planning involved the funeral arrangements. Chris and his father-in-law handled everything. Scott recommended a family friend who owned Ford Funeral Home. Looking back, it was the right choice. We were treated with care and dignity throughout.
There would be two days of viewing, followed by the funeral the next morning. The first day was reserved for family, the second for friends and the broader community. Before the doors opened, my brother and I were given time alone with our parents.
I felt torn. I dreaded seeing them in caskets, yet I needed to see them. It felt like going home, knowing my parents would be there waiting. Some feelings don’t disappear, even when the world they belonged to is gone.
I said I would go in first.
When I opened the door, rows of chairs filled the center and left side of the room. Along the wall to the right were two tan wooden caskets, chosen because my parents would be cremated after the service.
I stood there, stunned. I had just seen them days earlier. I had hugged them, kissed them, told them I loved them. My mind refused to accept that this was real.
I walked to my mom first. She was dressed in one of her dark blue outfits with a red shirt—the kind she wore to work back when she was a travel agent. Her hair was styled the way she always wore it. She looked like my mom… and yet she didn’t. No matter how careful the mortician had been, the injuries were still visible. The bruising. The discoloration.
I leaned down and touched her hand. It was cold.
“I’m sorry, Mom. I’m so sorry.”
Grief gave way to guilt. I replayed every decision we had made about our safety. Even after Dale pulled a gun on my dad, we treated him more like a nuisance than a real threat. There were moments when my mom believed he was capable of hurting us, and I talked her out of living in fear. We weren’t going to let some pest chase us off a farm that had been in our family for more than eighty years.
The guilt felt rational. That’s what made it unbearable.
I don’t know how long I stood there holding her hand. Eventually, I told myself the painkillers were amplifying everything and that I needed to be present for my brother and the rest of the family. I told my mom I would be here, then stepped over to my dad.
My Father
Even now, I struggle with the image of my dad in that casket. He looked perfect. Peaceful. Like he was asleep and just waiting for the right words to be spoken so he could open his eyes and wake us from a terrible dream. He was dressed in one of his dark gray suits—his Sunday best, the kind he wore when we went to church together in Ohio.
He had that familiar half-smile. The one he used to wear when my brother and I were kids, climbing into bed with him and Mom in the mornings while he pretended to still be asleep.
I held his hand. Through my tears, I smiled at the crooked fingernail on his middle finger. He had smashed it when he was a kid, and it never grew back right. I always noticed it when he held a board or a piece of drywall while we worked.
I wanted so badly for him to wake up.
The funeral home director gently opened the door and asked if I was ready for my brother to come in. I said yes and stepped out. All I could think about was my mom. I didn’t want anyone else to see her like that.
Family Arrives
Later that day, the family viewing began. Uncle Rusty asked for a few minutes alone with my parents, and Chris and I were glad to give him that time.
When my grandparents and my aunts and uncle from South Carolina arrived, I stood toward the back of the room. My Memaw leaned over my mom’s casket and wailed. I watched her grieve the loss of her firstborn.
My relationship with Memaw had always been complicated, as had my mom’s. Part of me felt compassion for her grief. Another part of me braced for chaos. Growing up, her volatility had taught us to stay guarded. Public spaces were unpredictable with her.
I didn’t understand her then. Years later, I would. I once took her on a long road trip to visit her sister, whom she hadn’t seen in eighteen years and who was in failing health. Along the way, we stopped in Fairmont so she could visit my parents’ grave. During that drive, she talked about her childhood, how she met Pepaw, and what it was like raising my mom. I learned how much pain she had endured. I realized she loved us deeply, but her love passed through wounds she never learned to name. She loved the only way she knew how. I wish I had understood that at the funeral.
Pepaw arrived in a wheelchair. They helped him stand in front of my parents’ caskets. He said nothing. After a moment, he sat back down near the doorway, his head lowered. Pepaw had always seemed larger than life to me—a John Wayne type. He fought for his country. He drove a semi across the country for years. Seeing him slouched in that wheelchair, defeated, broke something in me.
I put my hand on his shoulder. He covered it with his and looked up.
“If I were twenty years younger, Bobby, I’d grab a gun and kill that son of a bitch myself.”
He was furious. I told him my mom and dad wouldn’t want that. He nodded and said, “That’s how I feel.” Then he let go of my hand and stared at the floor.
Closing the Caskets
At the end of the first day, someone asked if I wanted to keep the caskets open. That probably wasn’t a fair question to ask someone on painkillers. I didn’t hesitate. I said they should be closed.
I had failed my mom in life. I wasn’t going to fail her in death. Protecting her dignity became the only thing that made sense. I wanted people to remember her as the vibrant, charismatic woman she was—not as a body marked by violence.
Closing her casket felt like being a good son. It felt like relief. One last thing I could do for her.
The Viewing: Public
The second day is mostly a blur. I remember a time when people were invited to speak about my parents. My mom’s siblings talked about how my dad had been a big brother to them. They described my mom as the glue that held everyone together—the big sister who could navigate any family conflict.
There was one incident that day. Mike Harnett showed up demanding the alpacas back. My brother and his father-in-law told him the animals were safe and that this was neither the time nor the place. A police officer escorted him out.
I saw the exchange but didn’t understand it until later. At first, I gave him the benefit of the doubt, wondering if he had come out of concern. That wasn’t the case. He wanted his animals back and was willing to disrupt a funeral viewing to get them.
The Service
The day of the funeral was overwhelming. Police patrolled outside as a precaution. The church was standing room only. Friends and family came from everywhere. I was struck by just how many lives my parents had touched.
I spoke about their faith and how much South Ridge Church meant to them. I said they had received their reward and were now in the presence of the God they loved.
Members of the worship team my mom sang with performed a few songs, including King of Glory by Third Day—one of my parents’ favorites. Pastor Seth delivered the sermon. It mattered deeply to me that the church family my parents loved was there.
Afterward, we ate at the church. That’s when I learned a decision had been made without me. For my safety, I was being sent to South Carolina. I wasn’t happy—probably why I hadn’t been consulted. I was told I’d have a police escort back to the farm to gather some belongings, then I’d stay with Aunt Beck and Uncle Gene. My head still throbbed. I didn’t have the energy to argue.
Returning to the Farm
Driving down Four States Road felt unreal. People stood in their yards watching as we passed, patrol cars in front of and behind us. We drove past the Eagle house and up the right-of-way. I closed my eyes. I didn’t want to see the place where my mom had fallen.
When I heard the old cattle gate creak open onto the farm, I opened my eyes. I felt like I was home. As we pulled closer to the house, I noticed half-finished projects waiting to be completed. My mind immediately started making plans. I could hear the ducks and geese and wondered if they’d been fed. It was all wishful thinking. When we stopped, I was reminded I was only there to gather a few things and leave.
Purple forensic gloves were scattered across the yard. I picked them up as I walked toward the house. This was my home, and it had been treated like a crime scene long after the crime was over.
Inside, the smell of gunpowder hit me. My body tensed. The sound of gunshots echoed in my head. I kept picking up gloves and throwing them away.
My brother told me to go upstairs and grab clothes.
I walked past my room and into the master bedroom. A section of drywall was missing from the wall where Dale had fired at me and missed. I stood there longer than I expected, trying to remember why it was gone.
In the center of the room was the spot where I’d been shot—a dark, twelve-inch bloodstain soaked into the plywood floor. I stared at it, then looked around. Everything else was exactly as I remembered. My parents’ pajamas were still folded at the foot of the bed. Purple gloves were scattered everywhere.
In the bathroom, I checked the closet. The ducks were gone—moved outside with the adults. I grabbed my toothbrush and a few toiletries, then went to my room.
I pulled clothes from my dresser and closet and noticed my computer tower was missing. I assumed, correctly, that forensics had taken it along with any device containing a hard drive. I was irritated. I wanted to bring it with me and keep playing Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic.
Before leaving, I remembered Five Days was still on my mom’s dresser. I wanted to take him, but fish don’t travel well. John and Barb agreed to care for the ducks, geese, and Five Days while I was gone. They had taken Blackjack. Our small group friends Kevin and Marie took Maxwell to stay with friends who had plenty of land. Smokey wandered the property and came home now and then. Oreo was missing. No one had seen him since the shooting.
Leaving
When we left the farm, I kept my eyes open. We passed the place where my mom had fallen. Rain had washed everything away.
Once we reached the county road, I closed my eyes—not to avoid anything, but because I was exhausted.
I sat in the passenger seat with Buffy, my cat, and Charley, my mom’s dog, in the back.