Dylan's Eulogy

Tuesday, August 13, 2019


Dylan was born during Monday Night Football. No, the Packers were not playing, wouldn’t that have been fitting. But nope the old Houston Oilers beat Cincinnati Bengals 28-24. From the start He was destined to like all sports. Every year during the March madness he would snapchat his multiple TVs he had set up.

He was also a history buff and liked to mention that the Berlin Wall fell the week he was born too.

We all know Dylan loved his cats. This affection started at a very young. Before Sebastian and Louie he had an army of cats. When he was 2, my family lived on a dairy farm and Every time Dylan visited he had to go “play” with the barn cats. I’m sure when they saw him, and definitely when they heard him coming because he wasn’t the quietest boy, they scattered. He has a special way with cats. He could make them almost paralyzed by the way he carried them…upside down squeezing them just below the hind legs. There is a YouTube video that I suggest every one watch. It will be the best 3 minutes of your day...Just search Dylan’s last night milking cows. It has almost 1,200 views (and no they aren’t all from me and Nancy like he claimed).  I posted the video right after Dylan started at Marquette and made sure to share it on his Facebook page so all his new friends could see it.  

Early on in Melissa and Dylan’s relationship, he texted me to find out appropriate timing to share the video with a cat obsessed girl he really liked. He didn’t want to scare Melissa away. Thankfully for us she wasn’t easily scared and stuck with him.

It was fitting that they included their love for cats at their wedding. when Dylan and Melissa called to ask if I would do a reading at their wedding, I could think of several other more qualified people, but I said yes. Now I was expecting something along the lines of some bible verses or maybe a story. Then I got the reading.  And honestly at first I laughed and soon realized all those other worthy people I thought of could not pull this off. It was a poem about how Our Kitties taught us how to Love. I love cats just as much as they do. This was a perfect reading for them, and I was so honored they asked me to read it with my cat ears and all!

Dylan was very clever. When he was around 6 or 7, I picked up Dylan and Danielle in La Crosse and drove them to Independence for the weekend. Shortly after we left Dylan insisted he had to use the bathroom and couldn’t hold it. Well were already in Onalaska and I said that I could have turned around, but he said no, there is a Mc Donald’s up here on County Road OT. So being a naïve person, I stopped at Mc Donald’s. Of course it had a Play Place and obviously since we were already here we might as well play. I took me an hour to get them out of there and it required ice cream to coax them out. And you know what…I don’t think he every did use the bathroom

Dylan got embarrassed very easily. The time I had to take him underwear shopping at Target was probably high on his list of traumatic events. The kids were in Montana skiing with their dad, Tony. Some sort of miscommunication happened at the hotel and their suitcase was left in the parking lot. When Tony dropped them off we had to go shopping for a few clothes for the weekend. So we walked around target getting the usual items but when it came to underwear…we had a problem. See Dylan had no idea what size he needed, his mom always bought them. He complained about how embarrassing it was to shop for underwear with his aunt as people walked around us. Finally he said "I DON'T KNOW, JUST PICK ONE!!"

Dylan was also very smart. When I went back for my second degree I had to take a stupid 100 level Finite Math class. I love math (not as much Danielle) but for some reason I was struggling. I called up the kids because they were the best math teacher I knew and asked them for some help. Danielle, being the sweetheart she is, gave me the one piece of the puzzle I was missing. All the while, I could hear Dylan in the background laughing and saying mean things about me. Well I got even with him though. They were both in college at the time and I liked to send them care packages. Well I sent Danielle a nice care package and I told her to make sure Dylan knows she got one.  When he asked me why I didn’t send him one, I told him next don’t laugh at me!

Dylan at one time said the atlas was his favorite book. Dylan’s passion included maps/globes, traveling and National Parks. In Melissa, he found the perfect person to share his passion. I am so happy that they got to travel so much during their time together.

When he was younger, we went on several trips together to wonderful places like Washington DC, NYC, UP/Mackinac Island, MN North Shore and our biggest trip out West. We stopped at the Grand Canyon and most National Parks in southern Utah. My family NEVER likes to make decisions so when I decided what we were going to do he affectionately called me the trip dictator. We always compared our list of states, ball parks and national parks visited. Just  a couple weeks ago we were comparing our Alaskan cruises. 

My family is obsessive card players and Facebook reminded me the other day why I hated playing cards. I always lost...especially when I played the kids. Dylans comment on the post was domination and Danielle said that’s what I get for being partners with their mom. Dylan played cards to the very end and I’ve been told he won, he always won.

Dylan was a smart, funny and all around nice kid. He would call his grandma just to see how she was. I don’t know too many young men who do that. He also reached out to her to come visit. During his college spring breaks he would come to her house to play cards. Just last year he came up to his dads for the weekend. After He dropped tony and Nancy off at a concert, he went to visit his grandma. She was at a church festival with her friends so he joined them. There was Dylan surround by a bunch of old ladies listening to polka music. But He didn’t care. 

He was so kind, always concerned for others, even when he was sick. the last time he was visiting, he just simply grabbed his grandmas hand and held it while they sat at the table. That is the way he was and that is what I will miss most about him. 

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