Two weeks ago, I posted Dakotah’s obituary titled “A message from Dakotah”. The way it was written led some to believe that my son took his own life. He did not. Dakotah died from alcohol poisoning. He was celebrating his 26th birthday, drank an excessive amount of alcohol and didn’t wake up the next morning. This was a terrible tragic accident.

In the midst of this devastation I was faced with the unbearable task of writing his obituary. For days I was completely speechless, and I still am most of the time. On the last night that I had to write it, I sat with a pen and paper for what seemed like an eternity. I was only able to get one word on the page... OBITUARY. That one word sent me into a meltdown and nothing else would come out. This is the point where I could do nothing else but look up to Heaven and ask my son for help. At that moment, I put my pen to the paper and “A message from Dakotah” was written. It was him, whispering the words in my ear and I was simply writing what I heard him say to me. Within 30 minutes it was complete. It was surreal and something that I will never forget. Many people have asked me if I wrote it. No, I didn’t ... I simply held the pen.