THE GREATEST MAN WHO EVER LIVED

He was born December 31st, 1982 to Jacqueline and David Hinant.. A healthy bouncing baby boy who was destined the world for the better, but he never had the chance to know it. He was a boy who would face many obstacles along the way but will blow through them like they didn’t even exist. He would eventually grow into the kind of man that we're all are proud of.

When he was just a few years old, his parents divorced leaving him with only his mom to support him because his dad didn’t want to think he had a son.

For eight years of his life he was able to walk, run, and have real freedom. Something that many of us including myself take for granted. When he turned nine, he learned his doctor diagnosed him with having muscular dystrophy and that he wouldn’t live to see his fifteenth birthday. We were all more than a little stunned at hearing this tragic news. What was life going to be like for him now?

He never complained about his condition other than him sometimes being in pain late at night needing someone to help him get comfortable in bed. This man quickly approaching his 15th birthday learned to embrace life and live it to the fullest to the best of his ability. He loved with everything he had and then some. His fifteenth birthday came and went and he was still here. He proved his doctor wrong by just being here. We were inseparable but occasionally we would get on each other’s nerves and have arguments but within fifteen to twenty minutes later we would make up and laugh at how stupid that last argument was.

As we grew older, we were growing separate. I often felt guilty about not being there as much as I was but if anybody understood it was him. There was not a day that passed by that I loved him less. If anything I loved him more. Everyone around him fell in love with him and it took just a second.

Despite numerous heartbreaks, he had a kind heart and he stayed strong. We told each other long ago that we wanted to be at each other’s high school graduation. In 2002, it was his time to go across that stage and get his diploma. I was rooting him on hoping that he heard me. I am not sure he did but he knew I was there so I guess that is all that really counts.

Sometime later, he had a heart attack and got really sick. He was in and out of the hospital. When I visited him one time in his hospital room and saw that he had tubes up his nose it took everything I had to not fall on him and cry. I waited until the door closed behind me before I broke down and cried. Not everyone in that waiting room understood why I was crying so hard but none of them ever understood where we stood with each other.

On May 14h, 2004 he died. He was twenty – one. He had died at nine that morning and I didn’t know anything about it until 2 that afternoon. I will never forget how I reacted to the news afterwards. At first I was smiling and probably looking more than a little goofy. Then reality set in and it felt like a bullet straight to my heart.

I went down and never wanted to get back up. Every time I heard his name out loud I would cry just like I did the very first time I heard of his death. I couldn’t bring myself to come to his public viewing or to his funeral. I still do regret each and every day that I didn’t say good bye to him. Even though I know it is not the same thing I did talk to him two days prior and let him know how much I loved him.

Who is this amazing guy you may ask? Oh nobody he was just my cousin Tim. To the naked eye, he was just an average person in a wheelchair. But to me, he was my everything. In my eyes, he was without a shadow of doubt the greatest man who ever lived.