Bonds With Angels
Proposal for New Day of Reverence For The Dead
Around 6:00 P.M on December 28, 2025, I found this fundraiser established by my kin, Jennifer Dundon. She is a cousin of several Dundons , some who live near where Drew Benton took her life, Three members in our family tree – are gone.
John The Nazarite;
Jennifer Dundon
Team CaptainSalem Oregon WalkPaper Volcanoes
Support MeGet page link
$150I get an official Walk T-shirt!
$750 Raised
With development of the liturgical year in the Middle Ages, readings on the last things were connected with the last Sundays of the liturgal year. While on the antepenultimate Sunday the focus is on death, the penultimate Sunday has the topic Last Judgment and the last Eternal Life. Traditionally, the last Sunday of the liturgical year deals in a special way with the expectation of Judgment Day. The Gospel is that of Parable of the Ten Virgins.
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Tuesday
July 9, 2024
Tomorrow is your Uncle Robert’s birthday. You know the one you were named after? Yeah that one. He was my baby brother and my best friend. He lost his own life at the ripe old age of 20 to his own senseless act of violence. But let’s not talk about that right now.
Let’s talk about the time when I was 19 and he was 18 (yes we were kind of Irish twins). We were visiting his good friend John Payne for Thanksgiving weekend when he casually offered up a place for us to stay in Hawaii. And not just any island but the magical magnificent island of Kauai. Oh and it gets even better the most beautiful spot on the island in Hanalei Bay.
Just like that we sold our cars and moved to Kauai. Why wouldn’t we?
Robert was mostly still called Robbie and he spent a lot of time hiking the trails of Kaulalau Valley. Coming out for care packages from my mom and to pay a visit to me. I will never regret that time we spent as a sibling team so far away from home. We were there around a year when Robbie was a little homesick for our mom and returned to the mainland. I lasted about another year and followed suit with a broken heart.
It was not too long after that that we lost him too in the most permanent way ever. I have never been quite the same without my Irish twin and often wonder where his life would have ended up. He would have been 65 tomorrow instead he remains Forever 20. Another beautiful boy leaving his own mama with a forever broken heart đź’”
Here is hoping they are all together where they belong waiting patiently for the rest of us. I imagine Heaven looks a whole lot like that magical island of Kauai on the shores of Hanalei Bay.
I love you my beautiful boy with an endless hole in my heart ❤️ 💙
Xoxo
Mom
Rafe and Drew Are Gone
I found out on Facebook two of my young kin, have died. I check in on the Dundon family once a month and was shocked to learn Jennifer Dundon lost her eldest son in an auto accident. I was sent on a journey up river where I camped and swam with them all. Then I found Rafe’s obituary. I was taken on a vision of such import. How does a mother handle the death of her child? Then, someone I didn’t know is saying his love, was dead. He was trying to find her family. Drew’s parents were dead by 1996. Drew was a loner’s loner. We were not close. She was not close with any of her family. I grieved in Christine’s place. I was there for her when they brought her home from the hospital. I am not at a loss for words. I doubt Rafe and Drew ever met. Did she ever chat with Jennifer? We are family.
So, there are words to go with them, and be by their side. I met Jennifer when she was two. She never met Christine, but she heard much about her. Her father never stop loving my sister. My sister never stopped loving her children. We are here, Left amongst the living. To carry on…the love. The love our children gave us.
Greg
Rafe “Fikis” Gabriel Donoho
November 20, 1998 – April 19, 2024
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Rafe’s obituary
Rafe Gabriel Donoho, our son, brother, grandson, nephew, cousin and friend, came into this world with thunder and strength. I can still remember his eyes, the way they softened when his mother held him. A love born of some ineffable force. Precocious, adventurous and at times unstoppable, his early years were filled with unbridled laughter and mishaps. You couldn’t leave him alone for a moment. His curious eyes and quick feet would inevitably find something to put in his mouth. This was all tempered with a softness, a caring deeply ingrained within him. He loved to wrestle and snuggle, telling his mother “I love you best I ever seen”.
I can remember hiking in those early years. He couldn’t have been more than 6. I would start the journey thinking he would make it 20 minutes in and inevitably ask me to carry him, and certainly there were those times. However, at times he would push his little 6 year old legs for miles. It was beyond impressive. From the beginning his sturdy body was built to withstand all this world could throw at it. And yet, as he grew older you could sense a kind of fragility in him. Not weakness, an unwillingness to bend. As with many kids, his journey across these dark waters started far too soon. For many years he struggled with the harsh realities of this world. Forever the warrior, he made his way. He would have his days in the sun with all of you, and those eyes would return if only for a while.
Through this all, that innate caring held strong within him. A caring that would manifest when he would find something or someone suffering and lend them his strength without limit. This led him into the military where it seemed he had finally found his purpose. Sending a child into that maelstrom is at once a terrifying yet revelatory moment. A moment you realize he has chosen a fate and is willing to face that oncoming storm alone, and that all he asks is for your trust. He faced that storm in the manner he faced everything he chose, with resistance, strength and a desire to confirm in himself that which all but he could see. Beauty! Unfortunately, fate would turn its keys unlocking yet another path through a new door and his military career would be cut short by a car accident.
He returned to us with what seemed renewed purpose. Plans for his future, dreams and possibilities. I remember his smile in those early days back, his laugh. We would go shooting and he would instruct me on all he had learned and of course correct all my “civilian” habits. It is a beautiful thing, the realization your son has become a man. That he no longer asks you to stand in front of him against the oncoming storm, but beside him. His journey through those dark waters would continue, however, and his resistance would harden. His eyes would grow tired and on the morning of April 19th, 2024, our son, brother, grandson, nephew, cousin and friend would take fate into his own hands and begin a new journey.
I love you kid!
We love you!
You are missed beyond measure my boy!
In the echos of the times we missed & the echos of the times we had I remember your smile!
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