Obituary
Ben is survived by his parents Jim and Marianne Hillyer, his twin brother Dave (Sherieen), his younger sister Kathlynn, older brothers Fred (Peggy), Bob (Janelle), Tom (Villa), Dan (Nicole), Johannes (Megan), Russell (Bethany), sister -in-law, Livi, sisters, Patti (Matt Smith), Becca (Daniel Lee), Marianne Porter, Heidi (Anson Carter).
Nephews and nieces: Megan, Hannah, Kirsten, Liza, Haley, Hunter Hillyer; London (Musfirah), Taylor, Nation, Asia Hillyer; Sara (Jacob McBride), James (Erika), Mabel, Marina, Lucy, Tommy Hillyer; Allan, Dara, Teresa Hillyer; Jane (Stoney Carson), Ben, Evan, James, Charles, Wesley, Anna, Bekah, Henry, Calvin Smith; Josh, Amber, Meadow, Adam, Owen Lee; Madison, Georgia, Beth, Emma Hillyer; Hadley, Brian, Elijah, Sam, Nellie, Johnny, Anne Hillyer; Eden, Grace Porter; Cache, Calli, Carbon, Cumorah Carter; Bobby, Lucia, Laurel, Hope, Jo Hillyer. His birth father Wes Hillyer, as well as many Aunts, Uncles and Cousins.
Ben is the 13th child in the Hillyer home and called himself Lucky 13. He was born 3 minutes after his twin Dave. He was a fighter from the minute he was born he had to struggle for his first breath. He and his brother brought so much joy and happiness to our family from the moment we set eyes on them. They were born with disabilities that effected some of their ability to learn at the same pace as others their age but Ben was an over achiever when it came to capacity to love. He made a very big difference to his siblings with his unconditional love for everyone. He hugged and kissed freely and would grab our face and look us in our eyes and say I love you. He taught me to be more affectionate -- not only to him but also the rest of the children. I learned to say "I love you" freely, which was something I had struggled to do before he taught me. Dave copied him shortly. Our family learned to show love for one another.
Ben's Indigenous name, given to him by his birth mother, was Happy Singer. He sang every day -- all day. Ben loved watching musicals like "Fiddler on the Roof, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dream Coat, Michael Jackson's Thriller" every day, all day, till he new all the words to all the songs and could pull off Jackson's dance steps. He loved showing off to his sisters' girl friends and would steal the show at dances. In preschool his teachers knew that getting Ben to stop bursting out in song was as hard as asking him to stop breathing. In kindergarten he learned to hum so he wouldn't get into trouble for being too loud. Sadly, he eventually had to learn to sing inside his head. He had to struggle to learn arithmetic but learned to read from listening to his mother read story after story to get Ben and Dave to get to sleep. He amazed his English teacher when he was in junior high because he knew all the stories of the Greek gods. We had paperback comic versions of many classics which Ben loved reading and was able to remember all the stories.
Ben loved to help others. Adults he worked with enjoyed his company. He helped his older siblings move out. He and Dave became experts in moving and stacking furniture quickly and carefully. He loved art. He worked hard on building a healthy body which he kept up for years. His nephews all wanted to learn his muscle building techniques.
Only as Ben hit adulthood did he tell anyone about abuse he had endured starting at age 6. He was told he would die if he said anything to anyone. He suffered alone and afraid. Talking about it ended up with PTSD, and other disabling mental illness. He didn't believe that. Over a decade and a half of trying to fight his demons, he wasn't strong enough to go on.
We need to be a more aware of the broken vessels in our midst and convince them of their great worth by believing they are. He loved unconditionally but could not believe that he was worthy of being loved unconditionally.
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Eulogy
Eulogy by Kathlynn
Benjamin Rowen Blood June 19, 1992 – July 9, 2020 Ataa Minski (Happy Singer), and a happy singer he was. Sadly, it was short lived. When he went to singing lessons, a girl made fun of him, and he never sang in public again. There were only two people that could make him sing -- me and my sister Mare. If I started singing or humming, he would join in if he knew the song. I would smile and think got cha. I always wanted to sing a song together with him but never had the guts to ask him to.
Ben really loved me, and one year long ago, the day before my birthday, Ben, Dave, my parents, and I went to a store to pick out my birthday present. It was a bouncy ball -- the kind you could jump on. So me and Ben and Dave all slept together and the next morning they woke me up and were so excited to open my present. We opened it and they found a pump to blow it up with. I just remember how excited they were to open my present.
He was so caring, and he showed that one night, when I had a night terror. I had woken up and came down the stairs screaming. I didn’t know where to go, so I stood at the top of the stairs and yelled for Ben and Dave. Ben comes running up the stairs, slings me over his shoulder, and goes running down the stairs. My brother Dan comes behind him because he heard me screaming. He comes in, scares Ben, Ben jumps up and spins around and lands on the bed with me on top of him. Dan then picks me up and takes me into Mom and Dad’s room and that was where we slept for the rest of the night.
Ben was my best friend and losing him has broken my heart. I have lost a best friend, but I know that I will see him again. Until we see you again, Ben, say hi to Mom for me, OK? I love you. Until we meet again.
View Kati's Video Presentation
View Kati's Video Presentation
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Eulogy by Marianne
I know it's too late for today, but I finally was able to say, at least, something. Sitting outside, trying to accept the day was here, I noticed the biggest, most beautiful, dragonfly I'd ever seen -- staying in the opening of the car door. I'd never seen one not scared of me. Peggy came out and told me a wives tale that dragonflies are visitors from heaven making sure their loved ones are okay. He stayed near us for the better part of the hour, checking things out, but always returning right to my eyeline. It was my Boops favorite color.
I messaged once that I felt sorry for people without a Boop in their life and the world is better because he exists. I miss my friend. I miss his laugh. I miss his generosity. I miss his complete adoration for my children. I miss my sounding board. I miss his hand in mine. I miss calling him to name a movie I can't remember. If he'd seen it once he knew every line. I miss laughing until everything hurt every time we were together.
I never saw a broken boy, I just saw my friend, my brother, in pain and lacking the proper resources to find peace here. So, if my sweet darling favorite human has finally found the happiness, peace and joy he's given me freely for 28 years, I can be happy he's finally found what he needed for him. He was the least selfish person I know. And I will miss him every second until I see him and hear that laugh that could cure diabetes and know once again, with my Boop, I'm home.
I know it's too late for today, but I finally was able to say, at least, something. Sitting outside, trying to accept the day was here, I noticed the biggest, most beautiful, dragonfly I'd ever seen -- staying in the opening of the car door. I'd never seen one not scared of me. Peggy came out and told me a wives tale that dragonflies are visitors from heaven making sure their loved ones are okay. He stayed near us for the better part of the hour, checking things out, but always returning right to my eyeline. It was my Boops favorite color.
I messaged once that I felt sorry for people without a Boop in their life and the world is better because he exists. I miss my friend. I miss his laugh. I miss his generosity. I miss his complete adoration for my children. I miss my sounding board. I miss his hand in mine. I miss calling him to name a movie I can't remember. If he'd seen it once he knew every line. I miss laughing until everything hurt every time we were together.
I never saw a broken boy, I just saw my friend, my brother, in pain and lacking the proper resources to find peace here. So, if my sweet darling favorite human has finally found the happiness, peace and joy he's given me freely for 28 years, I can be happy he's finally found what he needed for him. He was the least selfish person I know. And I will miss him every second until I see him and hear that laugh that could cure diabetes and know once again, with my Boop, I'm home.
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Eulogy By Dave
05 June 2008
Tears -- like rain from your sky
Weighed with sorrow and sadness
Filling My Ocean
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Lament My Child
April 21, 2020
When I was a child my eyes were open
the world was wonder
the sun was gold
I fought dragons and wars
always on the front line
of my lawn
never far from the home
I protect.
pain and fear only happened when I closed my eyes
and dream of reality
but each day I'd put on my Cape
and jump from the couch
cause I could fly
build a plane from junk
or live in a tree
when I was a child
the world was wonder
that I loved
I lived with love
and pain was a dream
now I am grown
capes and planes are no more
I sleep on the couch
not allowed to climb a tree
now I create the junk
but no one plays
I sit here waiting for the end of day
Oh, how the world has changed.
I used to live in love and dream of pain
now I live in pain and dream of love.
It's ok to weep my child;
Heaven has you now.
Ronan Blood
Be the Positive
08 July 2020
If you ever find you've fallen into a pit, plant a tree.
Nourish it and help it grow
And, eventually, it will help you climb
Out of the pit.
Be kind. Always -- no matter what.
Don't say nice things to make people feel good.
Say nice things because you genuinely care for the person.
Find someone you hate and love them anyway.
We don't love people because they deserve it,
We love them because it's the right thing to do.
Do the right thing.
If you have the choice between saying something mean and negative,
And the choice to say something nice and positive,
Choose the one that brings light and happiness.
In life, people will throw sticks and stones.
Don't use them to build a wall;
Use them to build a bridge.
There is strength in being kind.
There is more strength in being kind
Than there is in being unkind.
Be kind. Always be kind.
Find the positive in life
And, if you can't find the positive in life,
Be the positive.
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By Dad
Proverbs:
2015 08 26 Assume little. Believe in the power of your dedication.
2015 09 01 Do all that you can today because tomorrow is not promised.
The Values in Our Lives
Sunday, September 18, 2016
An artist will always see their flaws.
You need to look past your imperfections and focus on the beauty of what you can do.
Believe in your ability to create something beautiful.
We all start out as a blank piece of paper.
We can’t do much of anything.
But with each day we add value to the page of our life with our experiences.
And as time goes on with each year of our lives we continue to gain experience and add more value to the page of life.
With enough time and experience, we add enough values to the page of our lives.
We create something beautiful.
We simply need to take a step back and appreciate the values in our lives.
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Children
2017
Of all the shiny stones you possess,
and all the fancy phones and clothes,
the jewel that reaches up to grab your hand
and sparkles with awe and wonder
as they smile up at you are the most precious of all.
They are the ones that shine the brightest
just because they can.
and lighten up every one around them.
they are the ones you must be willing
to put down your phones for
to give up your clothes for
and lay down your lives for
and give them your all for.
Never let their light go out.
Hold them close and lift them high
for they truly are your pride and joy.
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April 23, 2016
Grief
Parsing sorrow.
It - pronoun, subject of the sentence, ambiguous reference., “It" refers to everything.
is - verb, simple predicate (to be -- linking verb) links “it” to everything that follows.
better - adjective, (predicate adjective) completes the thought and describes the condition regarding “it”. Better modifies “it”. Grief modifies you.
to pass - infinitive - like a verb but without reference to time or place, alluding to movement.
through - preposition - generally introduces the question “where” without reference to a particular place like "in" or "on" or "under" or "beside" - more like a passageway experience where place seems to have a beginning, there is some idea of an end, but the position of the subject is ever changing as "it" moves "through".
sorrow - noun (abstract noun, not a "person" or "place" and hardly a "thing") object of the preposition "through"1.
Sorrow is a searing one-way passage hewn drilled chopped hacked bored blasted like a tunnel through brimstone, lined with brimstone, surrounded by brimstone, erupting spewing breathing blowing belching blistering black fire -- not rational but visceral. It seems to have a beginning, hints at an eventual opening. Once you are in it you cannot go back. There is no way out but through 2, 3.
Sorrow cannot be avoided. You can drug yourself and try to sleep it off. But eventually you wake up. You can try to forget. You can try to lose yourself in keeping busy. You can try to escape by going away. But you can't escape yourself. Wherever you go, there you are 4.Someone might even choose to kill them self. But, when you die, you wake up alive, and, if anything, you remember better that you cannot become what God desires you to be, without experiencing what He knows you need to experience. You are experiencing the sacred transforming sanctifying enlightenment of grief.
You can treat sorrow as a cave; you can go in and never come out. But grief actually is a passageway and, unless you choose to stay in it, a glimmer of light will eventually dawn. God will have conducted His personal transforming holy purpose, and you will be directed -- through -- towards light; and you, more you, will continue, transmuted, on your sojourn, no longer in utter darkness, but having a different brightness of hope.
This answers the paradox of how sorrow can actually be better than not sorrow. It reinforces, substantiates why a person does not want to be cheered up or helped through or have grief shortened or avoided. It is impossible for grief to be anything but real and intense. We want people to leave us alone. Sorrow is a process which develops refines teaches transforms us, in a way that no other experience can or will. Grief is a thorough teacher. Sorrow is not to be avoided or minimized; we become through it, are created differently through it, a new creature with dimensions of soul otherwise unattainable.
Traversing the passageway of grief causes experience which ever changes the traveler who might sometime emerge; but, who will emerge inexplicably, inexorably, irrevocably different from how they entered -- wise, refined, purified in the furnace of affliction, purged, seared, extirpated, compassionate, empathetic, earnest to alleviate and ameliorate. You become a person of sorrows and acquainted with grief.
_______________________________
1. Mother Eve
2. R Frost. Servant to Servants
3. https://www.lds.org/general-conference/1984/04/the-great-plan-of-the-eternal-god?lang=eng
4 Jon Kabat-Zinn, Wherever You Go, There You Are: Mindfulness Meditation in Everyday Life
Index
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Unfinished. June 19, 1998
The stone people are talking
About building a new temple.
It is going to last a thousand years
So the foundation has to be strong.
But the God-people have a lesson
To teach the Human-people.
The God-people will let the human people build for ten years
And the Human-people will do it wrong
And the foundation will crack
And the Human-people will have to dig it out
And start all over.
The problem is going to be too much mortar.
The God-people understand the lesson
That has to be taught
But the Human-people will only see it
As a waste.
Some of them will murmur
And say why waste the time
And pain and sweat?
Why don't the God-people
Tell the Human-people
At the beginning
That there will be trouble with the mortar
And the stones will crack?
But the God-people understand the lesson:
Something good will be learned.
And the God-people asked the Stone-people
Who will go down and become broken stones
And be dug up and cast away?
So the Stone-people held a council.
They spent many days in their sweat lodges
Purifying themselves
So they could understand
The meaning that the God-people
Had in mind
To teach the Human-people, that some stones would be broken.
Then the council ended.
The spirit-people are talking
That their body will be a temple.
It is going to be in the image of the God-people.
But the God-people have a lesson
To teach the spirit-people.
The God-people will let some of the human people
Have broken bodies.
Their temple will not be rebuilt.
They will not get a firm foundation
Until the resurrection
When the God-people will build it for them.
Some will have broken bodies.
And the God-people asked the spirit-people
Who will go down and be broken bodies
And be ridiculed and cast away?
So the spirit people held a council
They spent many days in their sweat lodges
Purifying themselves
So they could understand
The meaning that the God-people
Had in mind
To teach the Human-people, that bodies would be broken
And that, somehow, it would be right.
Then the council ended.
And the God-people came again
And asked quietly
Who will go?
And they said, "We will go down."
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Like waves crashing on my soul
Slowly eroding it away to sand.
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