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The news was very hard on everyone. We’d seen much come and go…mostly go, but this time was rough. The pain is real. The loss is huge.

I have not cried this much in many years, and perhaps the tears were more to quell the aching in my own soul, and the aching that was and is felt not only in Silver Lakes, not only in Oro Grande, not only in Hesperia, but little by little, everywhere. Our soul’s pinings are the ones which reverberate throughout the space-time continuum, and it is those tiny little glimpses of forever which intrigue and scare the hell out of us all at one time. It is that nauseating mixture of grief and love and loss so very deep and profound that there really are no words alone which could adequately describe the depth of these emotions.

Kids are kids no matter where you are, and kids will do as kids do, and they will react to events big or small in manners that seem to be trivial to most adults. Adults grow to be harsh and unfeeling, like so many boulders lining Historic Route 66. We tend to bounce back and forth between ideals, decisions and opinions because many of us happen to care about what the rest of the world’s opinion of us and who we are and what we do is. I don’t. Kids don’t.

Dustin didn’t. No matter what, Dusty did not know how to be fake. His love was real. His pain, real. His life, real. The loss of Dustin is one which those who knew him and loved him will always feel. There is nothing like this sort of loss, for in its wake there leaves pain and heartbreak that in its own right is the lesson of life that we all each ponder to the point of helplessness. We grieve sometimes in place of being angry. This time the emotions are mixed - anger, frustration and loss are things which are not new to the world, but in this case the loss was and is monumental. When an old person passes we all know that proper preparations have been made and things are in order.

This time, though, nothing of that sort could happen. People scrambled to do what they could, not only to properly say goodbye, but also to properly and without too many tears, prepare themselves for emotions that not too many of us are ready to. As parents we are never prepared to say goodbye to our children. We ready our own selves for passing, but we fail to remind them that life is finite and life is precious and life can be taken from us in the blink of an eye.

Kids care about each other. They cry about each other’s losses and they miss each other when they are gone from one another’s presence.  And like them I do not care that I say what I say or that I do what I do, and it all is clearer to me now why it is that young people fear nothing - it is because they have not yet been tainted by a world which is harsh, lifeless and void of vibrance.  I wanted to write more about this young man named Dustin days ago, about his life and about what I knew of him. I wanted to let the world know that this young man wanted badly to be someone.

What he does not, did not realize is that he was already someone.

Sometimes in life we pine to be something or someone special to the rest of the world, and we place all of our energies into that one, daunting and life long project of giving a damn about what other people think of us. We do not get to the point where we only care about what others think about us as long as it is correct in our own thinking until we are already geriatric, already planning what we want done with our remains and who gets our stuff.

Unless they are terminally ill, young folks don’t think about that stuff. They have too much going on. They play their final game of ‘pretend’ while they are still allowed to be kids while living under the protective wings of their parents and the roof covering that place they only know as home. Dustin was practicing becoming a proverbial star on the desert horizon. His home life at times left something to be desired, and though there were times where it seemed that the future looked bleak for the family, Dustin never thought that way - he was one of those kids who did not and could not imagine his life being bad. Always smiling, always having a kind word and always with a good thought and a prayer within him was Dusty.

The kid I knew as Dusty will remain alive in the hearts and the souls of those who love him …and let me tell you what - there are a LOT of people who truly, deeply love him. I am one of them.

I watched Dustin grow from being a curious baby to a bumbling toddler, then from the toddler to a little boy, a boy to a teen. He became a man very young in life, but in many ways, he’d been destined for it. At times in his life there were events that seemed like obstacles, and Dusty’s life could very well have taken a turn for the very worst. Yet, it didn’t.

Dustin was an athletic kid who ran like the wind, daring people to catch him if they could, teasing people but not to do so in a hurtful or harmful manner but instead to make folks try harder so that they could find out a few things about themselves they never knew. Dusty used to like to read my writing, would ask me about what books I’d completed and if he could read the notes, the poetry, the musings. He was impressed with my abilities, told me that one day he expected me to mention his name when I made it to the Oprah Winfrey Show so as to hawk my books. “…and when she asks you who Dusty is to you, it’s ok to tell her that you are my aunt…I’m gonna watch so don’t forget to say it, ok? ” Ahh, the precocious manner of the child turned man who the world has had to let go of far too soon.

Dusty always made sure that those whom he loved knew that he loved them. He told secrets about his life, mentioned who the girl he had crushes on to me, and even asked me to give him clues as to which one was kind of sweet on him. Judging from the crowd at his life celebration yesterday, it would have been effortless to figure out which one was dreaming of being the one girl who was the girl of his heart, because there were many who came to speak of his attributes, with the physical ones being last on the list.

To all of you reading this who are aware of these things mentioned in this writing, know now that if you knew Dustin, then you knew love, know love, are loved, and if you realized this much upon knowing him, then indeed you were lucky enough to know that all these words written here are words of truth, honor, light and love. You have been blessed by an angel, unaware. Dustin’s measure of character and his depth of Love for all whose lives he touched will go unmatched. Never in any of our lifetimes will any one of us be able to recapture the light that was Dusty. However, this does not mean that we cannot try ourselves to be as bright a light as we can be, for we are all beacons of eternal light and Universal Love. Dusty is the light that shone brightly in the dark deepness of the desert. The loss is huge and the grief is profound, but in it there are shards of light that give clues as to why it is that Dustin blessed us all with his presence and all too soon was called home to gather his wings.

To those of you carrying the weight of this burdensome pain, whose heart aches and throbs with the loss and the grief, remember always what it was that Dusty was about and know that forever in the hearts and minds and souls of those in the high desert will burn the memory of a precocious young man named Dustin whose memory is blazed onto the surface of our hearts.

Dustin, you were a huge part of our lives, our families, our world. You are loved beyond measure, and we are all better having known you.

I Love You All…may your hearts be comforted by the knowledge that the light which was Dustin Rogers Martin, though darkened all too soon, was one which shined for us all!

“I’m gonna live my life from day to night with no hesitation
Make the best of every situation that I find myself placed in
Decidin right from wrong, choosing my final destination
Cause when it’s said and done, it’s just yourself that you are facin’ “

(Kottonmouth Kings, ‘Tangerine Sky.’)

DUSTIN ROGERS MARTIN - March 15, 1992 - June 15, 2009

May you all remember him when the strong winds blow, when the sun shines brightly in the day, when the moon and the stars dance in unison as if in collision with one another, giving us all something to smile and recall the days when we sat beneath them dreaming of life, Love and eternity…

Aloha ‘oe, my dear young friend….

Roxanne Cottell is a freelance writer, ordained hospice minister and book author who currently calls Silver Lakes in Helendale, CA home. She is married with three children. For copies of this writing or for other inquiries please send an email to revrkcottell@yahoo.com

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