“You are more than just my big brother, you are my protector, and my best friend and I love you more than words can say or tears can show. I’m patiently awaiting the day I can see you again.” This is a statement from Stacie Hepler about her older brother, Blake. When a person of such significance in so many people’s lives is tragically torn from them, it causes a change in how those people function and go about their lives from day to day. Blake Hepler was an angel among us, ripped from this earth too early in his life.
My friend Stacie Hepler and I go back to the early years of preschool, sitting on our feet in booths, making macaroni necklaces. Throughout grade school we fell in and out of different social groups but never quite stopped hanging out together. In high school we both went out separate ways for a while, leading completely different lives that never crossed paths. Entering my senior year, I decided to take a cosmetology course at the community college, and lo and behold, my old friend Stacie was in her second year of this program. Being in the same class with Stacie really helped us to ignite a routine of hanging out with each other again. We started going places together and getting to know each other all over again. Her older brother, Blake, would always try to get us to hang out with him, trying to spend time with his baby sister. But she never really took him up on his offer because he was so very protective, much like her wonderful father, Alex. Being such good friends with Stacie, I knew that I too could turn to Blake for help as well, and he offered his help many times when I felt troubled or uneasy. Being so close to Stacie, knowing her inside and out, feeling as if I were a part of her family, all added to the shock of what was to come. No one could have ever imagined or wished for the events that happened on Halloween night, 2007.
On Halloween night, 2007, the place to be was Greenville, North Carolina. All my friends had made plans to go there, including Blake. I, on the other hand, was invited to Raleigh to spend time with the man I am currently with. Disappointing some of my close friends, I headed to Raleigh and got numerous phone calls throughout the night from the Greenville party-goers. I woke up the next morning to one of Blake’s childhood friends bursting into the room I was staying in. David, tears rolling down his face, he said, “Just in case y’all were wondering, Blake Hepler died last night.” Like a lightening bolt it hit me and I couldn’t breathe. I grabbed my phone and called Stacie numerous times until she answered. I wanted so badly to be there for her in this time of grief. I felt so awful that I wasn’t in Greenville. On Halloween night, Blake Hepler was killed in a car accident on his way home from Greenville. He was not the driver; Blake was the passenger, wearing his seatbelt that locked him in his tormenting wreck, unable to escape. The driver was not only intoxicated, but incapable of staying awake because of his consumption of pills. He fell asleep at the wheel moments after they had gotten pulled by a policeman for going 80 in a 45 zone, at which point the officer did not take the boy’s license and therefore he let him drive Blake to his death. Blake died on the way to the hospital, at which time Stacie and her father Alex tried calling him to make sure he was going to work, never knowing the returning phone call would not be from their beloved Blake, but from an informant with the horrific news of Blake’s death.
Many beautiful memories give us strength in this difficult time. There have angels in all of our lives. They didn’t have wings or arrive with trumpets playing. They sometimes appeared in Human guise, taking on the appearance of our friends, family members, or a stranger that touched us in some way. Everyone who knew Blake will never forget him. Mischievous, unpredictable, goofy, fun, and always getting into some kind of trouble. But for those of us who saw the caring Blake, we saw the one who was so protective of his family, always had his “boys’” backs, and never backed down from his opinion. Blake was a character that is now entertaining in a better place where he might be able to behave. Please rest in peace, our angel Blake Hepler. You will not soon be forgotten.
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