Spoken by Sandi, Kyle's aunt, at the CAS Memorial

Hi. I am Sandi, Kyle’s aunt.  Although we have all come together today to celebrate the life of Kyle, each one of you, I celebrate also.  I celebrate and thank you for contributing to the wonderful 16 year old, that was Kyle.  Recently, every time I was around him, he energized me with his positive and non judgmental attitude, he always eased my mind when I voiced my unsolicited opinions about things he was doing,  and I was happy for him. He let me be a dork and he still loved me.  One night when I picked him up for a date, he got into the car, and I said, “I got my money, let’s spend it up”.  And he looked at me and said, “What?” Feeling like the dork, I said, again, a little embarrassed and with less oomph this time, “I got my money, let’s ummm, spend it up?”  And he said, “Oh, yah, haha”.

 He made sense of things that I didn’t want to be made sense of like his getting that tattoo at 15 years old, like the importance of his cell phone and his computer and having them in his room and on and using them all night long… I finally came to understand that it was because of all of you and not wanting to be out of contact with any of you, not even for one minute and he insisted on contact through technology in exchange for sleep.  I used to tell him that he was getting a buzz from his appliances and that was causing him to not sleep and he would tell me that he couldn’t sleep so he talked to his friends…and around and around we would go.

For the last month, my analogy of our situation is that we are like bees without our hive.  We are in motion but not appearing to be going anywhere.  But we are and we will.  Just like the bees.  Our hive is taking on new members – I have new facebook friends, new texting friends.  We are holding each other up and we are holding each other close.  I think Kyle would like that.   I know he would.  We will make a new hive, and memories of Kyle will live in it too.

I want to thank all of you for the love, the devoted friendship and the family that you built for and around Kyle.  That was his thing.  To have a family.  Apparently, a really big one!  I have read your posts on Kyle’s facebook, on the blog, and on the RIP sites.  I have spoken to many of you in person and I actually feel like I have a few new high school friends.  Your maturity, your courage and your caringness has stood out in such an amazing way and I am awed by all of you.

I Believe Too.

I Believe in You.

I Believe in Kyle and what Kyle Believed.

I Believe Kyle is in all of us.

I Believe Kyle is Forever Young, and Young Forever.

I Believe we will never make sense of this senseless tragedy, so to honor Kyle’s memory, and as our gift to Kyle, we must live every day with honor and respect, adhere to our beliefs and remember to do something fun every day!  Like Kyle did!