Des.

It's amazing how a person you hardly knew can change your life in an instant. The summer of 2004 started like any other for me. It was the summer between my senior year of high school and my freshman year at K-State. I had only recently started dating my first (and only) real boyfriend (I know, I know). My 18th birthday was just a week prior, and I was planning on spending my summer recuperating from shoulder surgery, working, and spending time with Cellorictus (CR) before he went to Interlochen and I left for college. CR and I had met while he was playing his cello for my high school's musical, and I was instantly smitten. He's a very cute boy. If I weren't a raging lesbo, we'd probably be married by now. Yikes. Anyhow. CR's family initially intimidated the shit out of me. Momma T is quite the mother bear. I adore her, even after all these years. CR's dad, Bart, helped me through one of the toughest periods of my life, and I am thankful for him everyday. CR had two brothers, Destry and Lucas. Lucas will always be my little brother, even though he's huge, and not a twelve year old boy anymore. Destry was a year behind me in school, but only a few months younger than me age-wise. This is about him, his story, and how it touched, and continues to touch so many lives.

brotherly love

 I've written extensively on what it means to me to turn 25. Honestly, one of the main reasons I've been so pensive about this milestone is because Des would be turning 25 this Saturday, the 17th. I can't say that I knew Destry extremely well. I think that the extent of our conversations included "How's your shoulder?" and "So, you're dating my brother, eh? Way to go, Rans, getting the older woman." If only I had known, I would have sat down and talked with him for hours, or maybe invited him along on one of our Bogey's trips. Today, I carry Destry and his family with me everywhere. He is a part of me, just like my own siblings. When I jumped off of the waterfall at Waka on my 25th birthday, Des was with me.  I think about him on a daily basis. It saddens me that he won't be eating crab legs off of the red "You Are Very Special Today" plate for his birthday. My heart constantly aches for his entire family. I know how much I've changed since I was 18, and hate that we are left to wonder who Destry would have been. I'm positive that he would have been great.

Destry was a beautiful, motivated, talented, intelligent young man who was unfairly stolen from his family on June 10, 2004. Because of shoddy police work, his death was ruled a suicide. Anyone who knew Destry knows that he would have never taken his own life. I won't go in to the circumstances surrounding his death, because that should be left for someone closer to him to tell. In fact, his father wrote a book about it. I highly recommend you read it. You can find it at www.apristinesuicide.com. I haven't read it yet, partially because I know the truth already, and also because I know that it will turn me in to a blubbering mess, and I will have no choice but to drive home and hug Momma T and Bart until the tears stop flowing.

Destry Greer Allen

Destry was named after a Jimmy Stewart character from the movie "Destry Rides Again." At the end of the movie, Tom Destry, Jr. rides off in to the sunset, as the hero always does in westerns after justice has been served. If I close my eyes and imagine really hard, I can see Destry riding off in to the sunset, though there has been no justice for this young man. I hope that one day there will be peace for his family and those that loved him so. Until then, I will never forget him, and I will always lay a rock upon his headstone when I am home. For every birthday I have, I will remember and celebrate the life of Destry Greer Allen.

Happy 25th Birthday, Destry.