Max Kay Heaton

Today is the anniversary of the death of my oldest brother Max. He died in Salt Lake City on September 22, 1962 at the age of 19.

I was eight years old at the time and I remember Mom and Dad being called away by a phone call in the afternoon.

It was a Saturday and my aunt Velna (Nenna) came over to be with us. She made sure we got our baths. Mom and Dad came home after dark. Mom was crying. Larry also came home crying.

Church leaders called at the house. I stayed home from school all week. There were all sorts of relatives and adults I didn't know who came to the house. The funeral was at the new ward building.

I suppose Larry should be the one telling this but I'll give the account I've been told all my life.

North of Salt Lake City the foothills used to be mostly sage brush and a few clumps of scrub oak. Now it is all luxury homes. But in 1962 it was barren land.

I remember as a child hiking up above the cemetery now and then. On a boring summer day we would hike up to the foothills with our lunches and sit up there looking at the valley below.

Our elementary school classes would take a hike up to the foothills and look at the geological formations (fault lines, the water marks from Lake Bonneville, etc.).

I remember kite flying in the foothills as well. There was great lift from the air rising out of the valley. Later I would follow the trails in a car or a jeep. Like I said; it's all homes now.

Max, Larry, and Tom Randall went up to the foothills to do some target practice. They were shooting .22s. They'd shoot at tin cans and roll paint can lids down the hill for targets.

A shot ricocheted off a rock and came back at Max. It entered through the soft tissue under his chin and never exited. He died instantly.

Just like that, he was gone. One minute he was alive and the next he was suddenly gone.

When I was growing up Max was larger than life. He played baseball and trumpet. He was a Boy Scout. And had he lived he would have served a mission. At least that was the prediction.

His funeral was well-attended. He had lots of friends.

President Lamont Peterson spoke to the youth at the funeral about vanity. It was a great message about the things that are really important in life. And a warning that teens aren't indestructible.

Larry's life would never be the same, nor would Mom or Dad ever really recover from the loss. It was Dad's ritual to drive up to the cemetery every Sunday afternoon to tend the grave. Mom would always go along.

I think Dad's parenting skills improved after that, though he had plenty of disappointment to contend with.

Mom had to bury two children, Max at age 19 and Janet at 41. She remarked after Janet died that watching her waste away from cancer was harder than getting that phone call that Max died suddenly. No doubt she would have preferred a different outcome for both.

But when Mom told me that God never gives us anything we can't handle, I knew that she knew.

In God's love we became bound together. When Mom and Dad were sealed together on June 24, 1977 Milton G. Thackeray represented Max at the altar as the rest of their children, all adults, placed our hands on top of theirs. Death can't stop God.

I don't have many memories of Max but I know I am bound to him.