"Everyone deserves a headstone" ~Robert "Bob" Neal Bay~

My dad and I were very close but hadn't had the opportunity to spend as much time together as a typical father and son. But the time we spent together over the last 13 years affected my life and myself emotionally as well as my outlook more than my service term on active duty with the 1st Infantry Division. My dad was one of a kind. Just a few months before my dads accident, I had finally had enough with my luck and my employment at several companies. After one job ended with the company filing for bankruptcy to my diesel technician job where several of my payroll checks bounced after I had paid bills.

I decided to just go into business myself doing carpentry and remodels and repairs. My wife and son supported the idea. So I jumped into it. Found It was slow getting it off the ground and advertising to find work. Just as I thought work was going to pick up, I got the phone call. My dad had been badly injured after he was hit on a bicycle by a car whose driver did not stop. I stayed at the hospital with him every moment he was there and so the work I had scheduled I had quickly forgotten all about as my dad fought for his life. He was still unresponsive when I held his hand and watched him struggle for his last breath.

I have been trying to get everything in order for him find his belongings, and I'm in a haze it's all a blur. This was so unexpected. We have wonderful family who has come together to pay for his funeral, but to pay the the cost of a headstone is beyond what we could ever come up with at this point, Sadly.

My dad will be buried near his father, my grandfather Donald Dean Bay.

[ -Channel 10tv News

“He was somebody who lived larger than life,” said Bay said of his father. “He said that was the way to stay in shape. He was 60 but going on 32.”

Bay said his dad was a hard worker, could fix just about anything and would help anyone no matter the time of day.

“Shock, I think anybody would be in shock. It's kind of hard to wrap your mind around it. I think I still am,” Bay said.

He says he was light-hearted and would light up a room.

Bay recently learned that his father was reconnecting with a daughter who was given up for adoption at birth and whom he never met.

“I have a half-sister out there. I have never met her, but he was talking to her, and they were supposed to meet this summer,” Bay said.

He wished the two could have reconnected and is now focused on getting justice for his dad with the arrest of the driver.