Dear friends and family of our beloved brother and friend, Rodney Hayes. I received a call late Thursday, March 19, 2026, from the Imperial County Coroner’s office, informing me that Rod was found deceased along a roadway in downtown El Centro, California. They will prepare a coroner’s report in the next week. They did say that the temperature was 110 degrees. All they could tell me is that he was lying on the ground with his jacket as a pillow and that he had his wallet on him with mine and other phone numbers written on a small piece of paper, which was how they were able to reach me relatively quickly. He had his phone with him, too.
I have since learned from our cousin that he helped Rod with the flight to the San Diego area Tuesday morning. Rod texted me from there that evening. He was planning to enter a drug rehab program in the area and was upbeat about having made that decision. I am absolutely broken-hearted. He had lived with me in Vallejo for about 7 months until he headed north to Montana and Idaho in early February and was making big plans for his future, something he was very good at.
Our brother Del and I ask you to help us with, at a minimum, funds to cremate Rod, which with coroner’s fees and death certificates, is likely in the $2,500 to $3,000 range and to consider making a donation that gets us beyond that amount to $5,450-$5,950, plus coroners fee and death certificates for human composting. Regardless, I’ve set a goal based on a GoFundMe recommendation, from what they see raised for after death costs to families, of $12,000.
You might be wondering about why we have requested your consideration of the human composting option in addition to cremation. I want to tell you about something I learned from Rod just last Fall and that he shared many times with his former wife and friend, Beverly. He was adamant that he DID NOT WANT TO BE CREMATED, but rather to be buried in the woods in that new option called green burial, or human composting, which he’d learned of on his favorite channel, YouTube.
Over the last few days, I’ve taken a deep dive into that relatively new option for us, following death. Here’s what I have learned in my research regarding the “green thing.” In some respects, the cost is in-between cremation and the cost of a standard burial. The best prices seem to be human composting with flat rates ranging from Renew Home at $5,450 to Earth Funeral at $5,950(which operates a nearby facility) plus coroner’s fees and death certificates, and I have no idea what other costs, in the end. Green burial is quite a bit more expensive, primarily because of specialized refrigerated transport a long distance to cemeteries accommodating this approach, since it is so new in California.
Our brother Del and I, and his family, would be so grateful to you if you can, and feel inspired to, if you will help us realize that one last wish of Rod’s to be human composted or green buried, rather than simply cremated. I feel that given what he’s been through, that “going green” is a beautiful send-off for a good man who found himself in terrible times all too often, here on our earth.
Rod loved the wilderness, forests, mountains, rivers, wide-open spaces, motor boats, in his younger days, water and snow skiing, being on the road, his two kids and grandchildren, and even a new great-grandson he never met, Mariah Carey, and most of all, motocross and dirt bikes!!!