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Sean Sloan Funeral and Final Affairs Fund

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My longtime friend, Tonya Tiede-Webb, lost her beloved firstborn son, Sean Sloan, to suicide on Friday. Unfortunately, he was denied life insurance due to pre-existing conditions, and he had no material assets that could be used to pay for his funeral and settle his final affairs. Tonya's income has drastically been reduced the last couple of months due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and her husband, Brian, just recently re-started his seasonal job doing masonry work, so the family's ability to cover these things on their own is extremely limited. As a result, we are organizing this effort to help relieve a bit of the burden of this unthinkable tragedy.

Sean's obituary can be viewed here.

This is what Tonya had to say about her son's loss:

It is with a heavy heart and immense sadness that I share that my beloved firstborn, the one who helped me grow up quickly when he arrived when I was just a kid myself at 19, has left this earth.

While it hurts my heart to know that he is gone and that I will be unable to see his beautiful smile and peer into his gorgeous baby blues that always saw the world just a little differently than I did, I am grateful that my son is now freed from the pains of this world.

It is no secret that Sean was a troubled child. He was brilliant beyond the abilities of other kids his age, conquering kindergarten at the age of four with classmates who were mostly six, acing standardized tests despite his youth, memorizing and mastering complex piano pieces as a child that even I struggled to play well, drawing pictures that left me to wonder what he must see inside that head that I couldn’t glimpse from my purview, enduring long-distance runs and jumping more than three times his mother’s height in the pole vault. Such brilliant beings often are misunderstood, and both his peers and adults struggled with how to fully appreciate his antics. Sean was an all-or-nothing, take-it-or-leave-it, put-it-all-on-the-table, no-holds-barred kind of kid.

That same fast-laned zest for life caused Sean to feel things more deeply than the average person, and to internalize the most mundane of comments and situations. Recently, the things of this world became too much, and Satan won his battle for my son’s mind. Last year, he met the love of his life, a wonderfully sweet girl named Kaci. She meant the world to him, but, as with many relationships forged so young, theirs was rocky and ended early this year. Not long after, Sean and Kaci’s son, Jason Douglas, passed away in the womb. Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, Sean was unable to be at Kaci’s side for the bittersweet arrival of their own beautiful son. Instead, on April 4, he and I sat in the hospital parking lot, awaiting the go-ahead for him to walk in alone to hold his precious baby for a few moments before turning his body over to nurses and his soul over to God. Over the last month or so, Sean, who has struggled with his dad’s untimely death since 2014, wrestled with the inexplainable feelings of a baby whom he never had the chance to know earthside. And, in the midst of his sorrow, Sean lost both of his part-time jobs due to the pandemic-related closures of Ruby Tuesday and Overtime in Mitchell. Broke and broken, Sean fought a battle that was bigger than we could see, and he handed his life over to eternity sometime late Thursday or early Friday.

As my family navigates our grief and weighs our options for a funeral to celebrate the life of someone who meant the world to us during this horrific time, we ask for your prayers, compassion and respect. Lord, I pray that my son saw Your face in his final moments, and I pray that You told him how much both You and I love him.
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Donations 

  • Anonymous
    • $300 
    • 4 yrs
  • Anonymous
    • $100 
    • 4 yrs
  • Kyle Schoenfish
    • $25 
    • 4 yrs
  • William Franklin
    • $50 
    • 4 yrs
  • Anonymous
    • $50 
    • 4 yrs
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Organizer and beneficiary

Wendy Royston
Organizer
Ethan, SD
Tonya Tiede-Webb
Beneficiary

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