My name is Avery Eaves, and on Friday, June 6th, 2025, my father, Milford Eaves, was struck by a vehicle while crossing a road very close to his home. I don’t know if the driver was under the influence, and there is an ongoing investigation. All I know is what the Belleville Police Department posted to their Facebook, basically stating that the driver did stop, was apprehended at the scene, and later released. My father was found in the road, breathing, unconscious, and having sustained serious injuries. He was transported to SLU, but unfortunately succumbed to his injuries.

My father had been on the transplant list for a liver for a number of years, and finally got his new liver just last year, so this is incredibly heartbreaking, because he had worked so hard to get healthy.

I’m sure many of you have experienced this pain and are aware of how fast everything happens and how you struggle to manage your grief while also getting arrangements in place. If you are still reading, thank you, truly.

The reason I am here is because I am trying to honor my father’s wishes and get him buried at Jefferson Barracks Cemetery. He was a veteran of the army. But before I can get the ball rolling on that, I have to get him cremated this Wednesday, the 11th of June, I’ve been working with the VA trying to see if it can be paid for, but unfortunately, my only option is to submit a claim, have it reviewed, and they MIGHT approve it. Which doesn’t give me a lot to go on, leaving me to have to handle this cost within the next 48 hours.

I am not normally one to ask for help, and my family and I could manage it, if I had more than 2 days, but my belief is that my father would not want me to use a credit card and go into debt for this, having just recently worked myself out of pretty steep credit card debt. So I am humbly calling on my community, any community, to help if they feel obliged to. Helping me take the first step in honoring my father’s wishes would be an incredible blessing to my family and me. Thank you for reading. I will be updating with case information regarding his death as more information becomes available.