Darren Benevides, beloved son, grandson, brother, nephew and friend, passed away unexpectedly on Monday, May 19, 2025. Throughout his short life, he formed relationships based on empathy, love and sometimes a highly idiosyncratic creative spirit and worldview that set him apart from the crowd. First and foremost, he was a free spirit, unchained to conventionality. Anyone who knew him would agree that he could be counted on to be an iconoclastic nonconformist. He heard his own drumbeat and followed it through all his days. He overcame not insignificant challenges in his teen years and his early twenties, finding himself again in the last ten years of his life and dedicating himself to hard work (which he loved) and his family. He was a loving and beloved son, brother and nephew, but his relationship with his maternal grandmother was in some respects forged from a different sort of material. They possessed an almost telepathic bond, connecting them from Massachusetts to California and now in the realms beyond human knowing. There was never anyone like him and he is deeply missed.