At around 2:45am Nov 24th Dane Heckman lost his battle with muscular dystrophy at the age of 14. He would have been 15 this spring.

Our family is absolutely devastated and will continue to grieve Dane for the rest of our lives. To know Dane was to cherish and adore him. For many years Dane woke up and announced “It’s a sunny day!” regardless of the actual weather.

He was one of the most positive, and loving boys I’ve ever met. He would fill spaces of silence with “I love you mom” “I love you nana” “I love you grandpa”. I do believe that he let all of us know how much love he was filled with, and gave us each enough “I love you’s” to last a lifetime.

Dane loved firefighters, police officers and anything “wee-o-wee-o”… The SLO county sheriff office honored Dane with a special ceremony and badge pinning as an honorary deputy. He loved that… his uniform still hangs in the closet.

Dane’s best friends were his joy. His sister Maci, cousin Marcus, and his buddy Cash. Losing someone as a youngster is just so painful and something that stays with you for a life time. I want them to know that Dane (as social as he was) is definitely with them, talking their ears off about everything under the sun.

Dane was kind, empathetic, thoughtful, loyal, and so innocent.

I never dreamed that yesterday, Thanksgiving day, would be my last day with Dane. My last day to physically care for him as I had for the years prior. My last time picking him up to carry him. Our last trip to the hospital. My last time seeing his sweet smile in the flesh. I’m so thankful that the good lord guided me to stay close to him all day long. I was never more than 10 steps away from his side. A lot of the day I sat watching him sleep, monitoring his progress. If nothing else, he knew I was right there with him the whole time to his last breath.

Leaving the hospital with a lock of Dane’s hair, and his favorite blanket was the hardest thing I’ll ever do. I can’t lie, I don’t even know what to do next other than try to see my way clear through the tears that haven’t stopped since. There’s so many more legos he wanted to build, and transformers that he wanted to buy. He wanted to go to college, and get a job. He had grand ambitions for life regardless of his disease and limitations. He talked about traveling the world, seeing different cultures and experiencing the world.

Dane was my number one fan… He was so loyal and so kind to me as his mom. Yesterday he asked Alexa to turn his light off and abruptly asked her to turn it back on because “It’s too dark for you to walk around safely in here with out the light…”

Even in his last day he was caring for me while I cared for him.

Needless to say… I’m absolutely shattered. Our family is raw with grief.

We don’t have service arrangements done yet, but I will post when I know more about all that.