Category Archives: Brad Dennis

I Am Losing My Best Friend

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 By Brad Dennis

Jerry Dennis and granddaughter Taylor Dennis

Jerry Dennis and granddaughter Taylor Dennis

For years the relationship between my Dad and I were strained. Memories of a childhood filled with selfishness and alcoholism far exceeded memories of a Dad playing catch with me. As an adult our friendship blossomed. We reconnected in ways I had only read about and once longed for.

 

My Dad passed onto me his love of golf, Carolina basketball and the New York Yankees. Ours was a relationship built on sports and the way two men can get themselves lost in these conversations. As I grew older and he grew sicker I realized there were more important traits that he shared with me. You see, he has an insatiable drive…anything he ever set his mind to do, he did. His quiet strength and fortitude forged strong friendships with others. His dogged determination in his relationships with his friends had him going out of the way on numerous occasions to help them.

 

I have lost other friends, I have witnessed tragedies, and I have been with numerous families at the worst times of their lives and because of these instances I thought I knew grief. The grief I did not know has washed over me in waves. First as we sat and listened to my dad tell us he was ready to go, and now as I sit and watch him wither away into a shell of the man I love. I now know grief.

 

His breaths are more labored, the memories of him come like a flood. There are the memories of him coaching my Little League baseball team, teaching me to play golf, the arguments and the love. Memories of him answering my call for help as my High School date and I got stuck in a ditch. I remember he pulled up, got out the jack, jacked up the back wheel and then slammed the car off the jack and back onto traction. He walked over to me and winked and then said, “Son, you need to get this young lady home to her family.” Nothing else has EVER been said about that night. He was the one I ran to during a marriage crisis He is the one that gave my wife her first real “dad” relationship. For all of these memories I am thankful.

 

I know that most of us hope to bury our parents and not the other way around. I know that what is happening is the circle of life. I know that his decision to accept Jesus Christ into his life brings to life the scripture, “absent from body means present with the Lord.” And even though I know all of these things…right now, I know grief more.

 

Memories will sustain us in these times. To my friends, expect to see me on the golf course more, as I walk the fairways or line up my next putt, know that I’m playing so that I can reconnect with my caddy – my Dad.

 

Brad’s father Jerry Dennis passed quietly this morning. Please keep the Dennis family in your thoughts and prayers. MK

 

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A Father’s Hope

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 KlaasKids has been helping the family of missing nursing student Michelle Le ever since her case was reclassified as a homicide. For the past two weeks we have offered advice, counsel, experience and our hearts as the family struggles to reconcile fear and confusion with a desire to recover their daughter. Today is the third day of the Michelle Le volunteer ground search, and despite my misgivings that anybody would show up early in the morning on Father’s Day, we have already dispatched more than 90-volunteers and it is not yet 9:00 am.

Instead of waiting helplessly for 26-year-old Michelle’s case to run its course, the Le family decided to become pro-active, and that’s when they called KlaasKids. KlaasKids Search & Rescue Director Brad Dennis flew into San Francisco from his home base in Pensacola, FL last Wednesday night to organize and facilitate the search effort. We instructed the family to secure a facility that could be, used as a staging area, to send a press release requesting search volunteers, and to keep an open line of communications with the jurisdictional law enforcement agency, the Hayward, CA Police Department.

Our design is to create an infrastructure that will endure beyond our departure.  To that end, we have been training family members as we dispatch volunteers. It is an enormous task, because there are so many moving parts including, but not restricted to: indoor staging locations with electricity, adequate parking, and plumbing; map acquisition and office supplies; projector for PowerPoint presentation; bottled water and food; administration and media relations; volunteers and directors.

So, here it is 10:00 am and we need to vacate this building within the next two hours. More than 100-searchers are in the field and all need to be de-briefed upon their return. Brad is flying back to Pensacola tomorrow morning and the search will be put on hold for at least a week. Where it goes from here is anybody’s guess, but have confidence that Michelle’s family will rise to the occasion.

Personally, I get great satisfaction from a job well done. There are many missing persons in the San Francisco Bay Area, but the only one people are talking about is Michelle Le. Coverage of her disappearance has dominated local television and radio. Approximately 450 volunteers have responded over the past three days and we have eliminated many high probability search areas. We have created a strategy for the future and the Le family understands the dynamics of our operation.

Will any of this bring Michelle home? I don’t really know. However, I do know that without KlaasKids involvement and our mentoring things would have gone quite differently for her family. Now, they have the tools to match their determination. They have the infrastructure to support their need. And, they have the structure to support their vision.
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