Initial Response - the first 48 hours
By Jenah Cook - Brian’s Stepmom
Day leading up to the news
planning a funeral
It was Brian’s 21st birthday. I called him and his younger siblings sang him “Happy Birthday”. He was getting ready to go get new tires on his bike and then head home and take a nap before heading in for his third shift job. We joked about how he was working on his birthday because he got paid time and half instead of bar hopping or celebrating. We planned on doing that later over the weekend.
A few hours pass and I am sitting on my phone at our neighbors while Dad is making brats on the grill he just assembled. I see on a “Nosey Neighbor” Facebook page in town that there was a fatal motorcycle accident on Clinton and Brackenridge. I wasn’t really concerned as they stated it was a red bike - Brian’s bike was black (I totally spaced that he got new red plastics put on the week prior).
As always whenever I see a “bike down” post, I checked Brian’s GPS. It was pinging him near the location. So I called and he didn’t answer. We always had a rule, If I call you two times, you pull over and call back or send us a text. But he didn’t. After about 5 minutes, I walked over to his dad and told him what was going on. We started calling hospitals and the police to find out anything we could but were not getting anywhere. So our friend Coty hoped in my car and drove Shaun towards that location. During that time, I am making any phone call I can. Finally, I called his best friend, Tye, and told him of the accident and asked him to head that way to make sure it wasn’t Brian, maybe it was one of his friends.
I head over to my friend Jackie’s camper to start making plans if I need to go to town. I call Tye back. He just keeps repeating “I need to call Shaun” - and I knew something was wrong. So I had Jackie start driving me in that direction. Half way there, I call Shaun to see where he is. He’s at Lutheran. It was Brian.
The following day I knew I had to get him out of the hospital morgue. I didn’t want our baby boy sitting in a morgue. It just didn’t seem right.
And with his mom on an airplane, and his dad unable to speak words from his mouth, I decided to take charge and do what I thought everyone would agree on. You see, Brian’s parents have been divorced since 2011, and haven’t always gotten along, so I really didn’t want to cause any trouble while making these plans, but I just couldn’t let him sit in that hospital morgue any longer.
Cassy lost her father a few years prior, whom she was very close with - and Brian was very close with him as well. That gave me the idea to figure out where his funeral service was held and where he was buried. It was DO McCombs & Sons Lakeside Park. So I knew in that instant, that’s who would handle Brian’s affairs.
So I made contact with a wonderful woman named Kaelin and the following day we met with her to make his arrangements. In the meantime, I searched Brian’s room high and low to see if he had any paperwork on life insurance, which he did - so we brought that amount with us to make arrangements.
Planning our son’s funeral was so smooth. We all got along and shared laughs, cries and stories. It’s almost like he was in the room with us when they showed us casket options and the blue casket was shown.
The following day I met with the director of the cemetery that his Grandpa Randy was at, miraculously, they had two available plots directly behind Grandpa, which they told us initially there were for sure no plots available in that part of the cemetery. We also met with the pastor who would do his service.
We met that week with Mom and Ryan, gathering pictures and other memorabilia to honor him at his service. I quickly came to realize how much of an honor it was to be in his life for the last 13 years.
Brian and Sabrina
making calls
Once we pulled up to Lutheran Hospital, I looked at my husband. He was kneeing on the ground crying in the parking lot. I instantly knew that Brian was gone. Coty was there trying to comfort him.
Back up 15 minutes prior, I called my mom bawling my eyes out. “I need you here in Fort Wayne Mom, Brian was in an accident”. She immediately packed a bag and headed here from Detroit, MI area.
I also called Brian’s stepdad, as him and his mom were in South Dakota on a motorcycle on vacation and I didn’t want him finding out while driving on the highway with Cassy. I let him know Brian was in an accident and I will call with updates as soon as I knew what was happening.
Once I got the words out of Shaun’s mouth, I knew we had to call his mom and tell her what was going on. The screams and sobs will forever be in my memory. She immediately had to plan a plane trip back to town and figure out how to get their bike back home. (Luckily, they were with a group of friends who trailered it back home for them).
Jackie led me back inside to the “Quiet Room” of the hospital where I talked with the Chaplin. They asked if Dad and I wanted to see him, in which we declined as they said he was in rough shape. Since Shaun was in no shape to talk to anyone, I made sure there were no forms I needed to sign or any paperwork that I didn’t already have that I needed. And they explained to me the next step would be having him moved from the hospital morgue to the funeral home that we would hold his service at.
During this time at the hospital, I called Shaun’s brother, Brandon, and one of our other older sons, Anthony and told them to come to the hospital.
When we were done at the hospital, we had Coty drive Shaun, Anthony and I back to the campground. But first, we needed to tell Shaun’s mom (Brian’s Grandma) Sue in person, so we headed over to her house to tell her.
After telling grandma, we headed back up to camp, not really sure what we were doing. It felt like we were floating in an unreal world. We realized we forgot to tell Brian’s older sister, Sabrina about it. She is in Alabama at a rehabilitation center, so we were not even sure they would allow us to talk to her. Shaun told her what happened, and those are more screams and sobs that are forever burned in my memory.
That morning, I made a “Happy 21st Birthday Brian” Facebook post, and later that night, I made a “Brian’s Forever 21” post because people were already calling and messaging me because the news station posted about the accident and word had already traveled that it was our son.
Brian and one of his hobbies
Brother Alex and Newphew Max