Someone that meant a lot to my daughter recently passed away. He was a mentor to her, and he was taken too young. He had a family – children and a wife. I didn’t know this young man, but my daughter worked alongside him and talked about him often.

He was from West Virginia, and he was West Virginian through and through. He loved his home state and the people in it. So much so that he went into the nursing field to care for those people. He apparently always had a smile and a kind word for those around him. He was patient and forgiving. He became a mentor to my daughter when she was an intern.

When Lindy began her training as a nurse, she was very nervous and unsure of herself, as I assume most new nurses are. Nurses carry a lot of weight on their shoulders and gracefully accept the responsibility for life. This young man was working on Lindy’s floor. He took the time to teach her and the other foundling nurses things that he had learned, things that would make them better caretakers. Lindy tells how he was always supportive and took the time to talk with them and reassure them. He gave them the tools they’d need to be on their own one day. After graduating, Lindy ended up working alongside him on the same floor. Being the new kid on the block, she was relieved to have her mentor there should she have questions. He let her know when she was wrong, and helped her to grow into her new role as a nurse. He had grown up in Huntington, and we help our own… one of the wonderful characteristics about us hillbillies.

When Lindy attended his funeral, she described it to me afterward as sad yet beautiful. She said his favorite team colors were on display to show his pride in them; blue and gold for one of our West Virginia home teams. She said that his family told warm stories about him. She said, “He grew up in Huntington, he’s one of us.” That alone told me so much about this young man I never even met.

The most touching part of her recollection of the day though, was about the end of the service. Lindy said that at the very end, “Take Me Home, Country Roads” was played as people were getting up and leaving. She said that every single person there began to sing along and that their voices were louder than the track itself as it played. She had goosebumps from the overwhelming pride in that room at that moment. She said she will never forget that moment in time, and that she is so proud to have roots in West Virginia. You don’t grow up in West Virginia without learning that song, and when you hear it you can feel it deep in your chest. I know that young man who had to leave was a proud West Virginian and hillbilly, and I know he heard them all singing. This is who we are.