I’ve tried to write this statement so many times before but it is just too hard.

How do I put into words that terrible day when I was in the grocery store and the phone rang? How I picked it up, and my world came crashing down?

How do I put into words the emotion of standing by Kevin’s bedside and realizing he was no longer there? That someone had stolen him from us and left us with broken glass in our hearts? Or sitting in that waiting room in Stanford Hospital knowing there was nothing left to wait for?

How do I explain the long nights when I sat there unconsciously waiting for a kind word from my friend and fellow insomniac, who would tell me jokes or stories when he knew I couldn’t sleep? How I sat vigil for months with this hollow pain?

How do I describe having to relive the shock of Kevin’s death over and over as I informed other friends? Of experiencing their horror and then denial because Kevin was such a good driver? Or feeling that piece of them die when they realized such a gentle soul had been destroyed?

That’s what Kevin was though. He was gentle. And caring. He wanted nothing more than to see people happy. It was the final cruelty that someone else’s wanton disregard for others caused his death and hurt so many people who knew and loved Kevin. As I write this it has been one year, eight months and six days since Kevin was so senselessly killed. I would like to say the ache has gone away. But it hasn’t. The pain slips into the room whenever I think of Kevin. It is there in the eyes of his family when I talk to them, knowing that the link that binds us is a man none of us will ever see again. The pain is a palpable ghost in the night when, despite my sensible nature, I expect a cheerful message from him because he noticed I was online and realized I was having yet another hard night getting to sleep. The pain is searing whenever, for the last year, I’ve tried to write this statement, knowing that the day might finally come when I would have to tell strangers how awful Kevin’s death has been on those who knew and loved him. How do you write a simple statement of impact when someone so kind, so caring, so enthusiastic about life, is suddenly ripped from you? It’s like being asked how you are feeling when a building has just come down around you. It’s all too much to answer.

Kevin was my friend. If you’d ever met him, he would have been your friend, too. He was that kind of man. And now he’s gone. How has it impacted me? My world has crumbled. My faith in humanity has fallen. My world is darker and less friendly. The nights I can’t sleep are longer and now painful. And, above all, there’s a huge hole in my life where my friend should be.

Now that there has been a mistrial, we are all left in perpetual mourning. There has been no closure for me, for other friends, or for Kevin’s family, especially for Kevin’s wife Anne. Many of the people who knew Kevin will spend the rest of their lives paying the cost for Jazz Hayhurst’s crimes while the killer himself will not have any repercussions. It’s a bleak world where the victims serve the sentence.