Tuesday December 12th, 2023 at 12:19am, I received a call from my mom telling me my father died.

This call came as a complete shock. Earlier that day (12pm Monday) I had taken him and my mom to the hospital, as they were both feeling sick. After minimal testing, the hospital cleared them, saying it was only the flu and there was nothing to do but wait it out, he should feel better in a few days.

As he had just been seen, I did not expect to receive the call I did 12 hours later, after just having seen him that morning. It’s because of this that we would like to receive an autopsy, which the hospital said he does not qualify for because he was not “an in-patient, and the cause of death is clear”.

Rick was a loving husband, a doting father and a friend to nearly anyone he would meet. Whoever coined the phrase “he would give you the shirt off his back” must have done so after meeting him.

After having to retire from the Fire Department, he worked many odd jobs, mostly ones that would bring me joy. When I was a kid, it was Build-a-Bear. When I wanted to go to a high school farther out, he became a bus driver. He worked as both a bus driver for FCPS and as a manager at Wolf Trap for the last few years of his life.

Along with providing for his family, he believed in giving the best service to his community. One of his last jobs was working at Target, where he would be the “fun cashier” with the crazy hats and goofy attitude, having customers flock to his line to see him. As a bus driver, one of his favorite parts of the job was the homework he assigned himself of letting the kids know if they wanted to hear any specific songs on the bus to write him a list. He would spend hours after work downloading music just to see a random students face light up for the three minutes their song played.

As he was only 56 years old, and this was supposedly just the flu, it was extremely unexpected. My dad made the income and had the health insurance, where my mom is now without either. I hoped when this time came I would be able to support my family more, but as this happened way earlier than I anticipated, being that I’m only 26 and just started getting my business up and running, we are left asking for donations from anyone who would like to support my family through this and provide my father with a celebration of his life that he is deserving of.

Here are the current costs we plan to face:

• $8k for a funeral (date tbd)

• $4k for an autopsy

• $2k to break my moms lease

• $1k for miscellaneous costs we haven’t encountered yet

To everyone who has already reached out, thank you so much.

Thank you,

Annabelle “Elle”