Me and mom stood in the kitchen the other day and opened our first gravestone junk mail. Some out-of-state outfit pilfers through dozens of regional obituaries and bulk-mails the closest living relatives of the deceased, ..I guess by using the internet to cross reference our name with our hometown, and finding a mailing address.

This is really happening.

Often I think about how I'm going to avoid being bitter and sad, and begin to instead, celebrate his life. Then I realize that I really haven't starting grieving yet. Then I think how Collin's dying, ..isn't something we're ever going to "get through" or "get over." It will always be there.

So I don't know.

But when somebody asks me how many brothers I have, I'm still going to say "three". He's part of us, ..all intertwined in who we are, and an integral part of what makes me, me. You can't live your life with someone for 20 years and just give them up and let go of them. I don't think it works that way. We're never going to "get through" this. Me and my dad and my mom and jason and corey are just going to learn to live with it -- somehow, ...sometime a long time from now.

Go into your bathroom at night and look at your wife's or your brother's or your husband's or your sister's toothbrush, right where they last left it on that sink in that cup on that morning of that awful day, and tell yourself that you can't talk to that person again - that person who you'd defend and fight to the death for, and that person you'd do anything for.

And no, it is not fair to walk up to a person who just watched his little brother die, and ask him "how're ya doin." It simply isn't fair. Understand the sarcasm and let me tell you that I've "never been better."

I think that'll be the standard response for a good long while.

Because we loved him. And we got to sleep in that hospital on those couches for two weeks. And we got to go see him on visiting hours 4 times a day, and got to cry when he was doing better and cry when he was doing worse. All that stuff. We got to do it all. And I never want to do that again.

I'm never going to forget him. And I'm never going to forget him opening his eyes when he heard my voice, and squeezing my hand.
80% of the people with his injury don't survive the ambulance ride to the hospital. The next 15% don't survive a day.

Collin fought for 2 weeks. Collin told Lesley he loved her, after they took his respirator tubes out, and he told Corey what kind of tires to put on the truck. And he looked up at me, and down at my legs when I told him I was wearing his pants. Thats the kind'a stuff that made Collin Collin. Thats the kinda stuff I'm gonna remember. Not the screams and the writhing around in pain and not the tubes and not that horrible beeping.

Collin had a baseball hat. It says "shut up and fish" on it. Today I was taking a dump and I noticed that the hat was still there, hanging on the back of the bathroom door, right where he left it.

I sat there and thought, ...because that's what you do on the toilet, .. I thought that's ...the kinda stuff me and corey and jason will remember, and enshrine, and celebrate.
It's what Collin would want us to do.

Collin Vaughn Stephens, 20, of Malvern, went to sleep September 5, in a Little Rock hospital.

Collin was born August 20, 1982, a son to Don and Jayne Stephens, a twin brother to Corey Stephens, brother to Jason Stephens, and brother to Drew Stephens. Collin is a member of the Malvern congregation of Jehovah’s Witnesses.
Collin was engaged to be married to Lesley Lawhorn of Hot Springs.

Collin was a laugher and a joker; a loving son and a loyal brother; an apprentice of electricity and a paddler of canoes, a buyer of bulk fireworks and a man who made to-do lists just like his dad. He was caring, committed, and faithful to those who loved him and to all of us who will miss him, until the time comes when we’ll see him again.

Funeral services are Saturday, September 7th, at the Atkinson Funeral Home in Malvern.


Nothing I could ever say or ever write down could begin to show how much we hurt, and how much we will miss my dear brother Collin. Nothing will ever be the same. Everything has changed. Saying anything about it here, seems to cheapen his life, his life with us and all the memories I have of us. So I will leave it at that.