Sgt. CJ Nelson Goes Home (Ep. 338)

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1:04 If they are brave enough to suit up, you have to be brave enough to let them.

1:08 As a quote from the book Humanizing the Badge by Elizabeth Shiftwell.

1:12 That quote was printed inside the program for the funeral of

1:16 Edmund Police Department Sergeant Christopher James Nelson.

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1:24 But he was just CJ Toss, though.

1:30 He was my first cousin, he was killed while on the line of duty.

1:36 On July 19, 2022.

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1:51 He leaves behind a wife, my cousin Jennifer, and two young children Emily and Connor.

1:58 And a destroyed family and community.

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2:07 So, as hard as it's going to be to do so, my goal for this podcast today is to honor him.

2:12 And I would appreciate it if you guys would stick around with me as I try and do that.

2:18 So, as I mentioned from the very top, he was killed while on the line of duty.

2:24 So, this was last week again, this was on July 19, last week.

2:31 And I was doing something I don't normally do during the day, which was scrolling through Facebook and we have a little family Facebook group

2:39 so that we can all kind of keep in touch with things that are going on with the family.

2:43 And I see that one of my cousins, my first cousin, who is the sister to my other cousin Jennifer,

2:53 she posted in there that hey, CJ's been involved in an accident.

2:57 He's a motorcycle cop in Edmund, Oklahoma.

3:00 Had he been involved in an accident, and you know, please pray for him.

3:04 And he had been in accidents before, you know, he ran into the back of a vehicle, got that kind of beat up and kind of hurt.

3:10 And so, my initial reaction was, you know, he maybe had to lay his bike down.

3:15 You know, maybe got some road rash, but you know, aside from that, not a whole lot.

3:21 But she said that one of the local news stations was covering what would happen.

3:26 And I went to the news story and I saw the wreckage.

3:34 And I saw that his motorcycle was basically unrecognizable unless you, you know, know what the rear fender and wheel look like of Harley Davidson, I guess.

3:46 His bike was pinned between Mercedes Benz and a big work truck.

3:54 And as soon as I saw that, obviously my heart saying because I was like, well, that considering the road that that was on, and the way the crash looked, and where the bike was positioned, I was just like, that's, that's not survivable.

4:08 I mean, that was, I was just like this.

4:10 How could this, this couldn't, you know, this couldn't happen.

4:14 And maybe five minutes later, after I was looking at the news, I get a call from my dad.

4:19 My dad doesn't call me very much. You know, I typically call him or we communicate via text or something like that.

4:26 And the very first thing I said is tell me he's alive.

4:31 And he, he couldn't do that.

4:38 Because he wasn't.

4:41 They said they tried to resuscitate him at the scene in the crash.

4:44 And they later pronounced him dead at a local hospital.

4:48 But again, my understanding of what happened.

4:53 It was pretty apparent that he was probably killed instantly, I would think. I would, I would kind of hope.

5:01 So I'm talking to my dad, you know, trying to, trying to figure out what exactly is going on.

5:07 You know, where is his wife? You know, where, where are the kids? Like, what's, you know, where, where are the things, where are all the things going on?

5:14 And this, this caught me interesting. And I continue to think about it. I continue to think about it today.

5:20 He mentioned his father. So my dad's father was killed when my dad was 13 years old. He was killed by a drunk driver.

5:28 And 50 years later, this December will be 50, the 50 year anniversary of when that happened.

5:37 And my dad was still getting choked up.

5:40 He lost his father over, you know, half a century, a half century ago, you know, and it's still affecting him.

5:46 So we'll probably talk a little bit more about that later on. But then, you know, the dust started to settle on that initial news.

5:54 And then we started to get more news on, you know, what happened. So he was hit by a 54 year old man named Jay fight.

6:02 And as it stands right now, we don't know exactly what happened here. There's obviously going to be

6:09 a tremendous amount of resources put into an investigation to find out exactly why this happened.

6:15 You know, there's a bunch of different potential reasons, but we should be seeing, you know, some evidence come out hopefully soon and some charges come out and then I'm sure there will be a judicial process and all that.

6:27 And so, you know, I guess we can look forward to that if you could even say such a thing.

6:33 But in an interesting and fitting twist, he was arrested using my cousin's handcuffs.

6:42 Because screw down on the ground, along with, you know, the parts of the bike and the other cars and parts of my cousin were his, his handcuffs.

6:51 And so they use his handcuffs to to arrest him, which, you know, they felt felt right that that happened.

6:59 So we'll see how that goes moving forward.

7:04 Whether or not the test comes back positive for that. I do know right now that they have not announced charges, but they're looking at first degree manslaughter and second degree murder.

7:13 That second charge makes me think he wasn't just texting and driving that he did something by accident. My cousin was at a red light.

7:20 He was sitting on his bike at a red light and this guy plowed into him going 60, 70 miles an hour. Okay. So we'll see how it goes from there.

7:29 But obviously that first day I didn't want to do anything to unnecessarily clutter up what was already happening with the family and happening in the house.

7:38 But the next day I was communicating with my aunt who was at the house with my cousin and the kids.

7:44 And I was like, okay, the six year old boy. He loves baseball. I'm going to come over with my glove and we're just going to play catch.

7:51 And so I walk into the house and, you know, I greet my cousin CJ's wife and she and I just embrace each other for a moment and then I went into, you know, play, play mode, right?

8:02 That's kind of my thing is I like to make everybody laugh and everybody have a good time.

8:06 And so I grab, I grab the son and, you know, we go out and play a little bit of catch and then, you know, grab his daughter and the son and we go out to the shop and, you know, hop on the pull up bar and try to do some pull ups and, you know, just things like that.

8:17 Just trying to be a little bit of a distraction. And we did some other things, which is, you know, stuff we'll keep with the family, but before I left.

8:27 And there were already quite a few people there. There were some police officers outside some inside. There were, you know, I think five police wives sitting there on the couch.

8:35 But I pulled genocide right before I leave, because again, I don't want to be a bother. I just want to be around if something is needed and there's something that I can do, right?

8:44 That pull her side. And I read to her, Isaiah 43 to when you pass through the waters, I will be with you and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you.

8:53 When you walk through the fire, you shall not be burned and the flame shall not consume you.

8:58 And I told her that she's going to be able to display strength that she didn't know as possible and that her kids didn't even know existed.

9:08 And that if there's anything positive that can come from that, that was one of them. That was one of the positive things that could come from that.

9:16 And that seemed to have happened a few days later. We'll get more into that here in a second.

9:22 But there was an overwhelming outpouring of support for the entire family and the greater, you know, from the greater Edmond community.

9:30 You know, in the state of Oklahoma and specifically in the city of Edmond, we still love our cops, right? Even when they make mistakes, we love our cops. We love our first responders.

9:39 So there's a bunch of public art in the city. I live in a bunch of statues. Someone ran around town and put thin blue line flags on all the statues.

9:48 There was a memorial at the police station. They, they pulled up a bike right there.

9:55 And people from the community key community came by and, you know, put flowers down and I drove by the memorial several times and every time I was out there, there was somebody out there.

10:03 The last time I went there, I drove my dad by and there was a guy standing out there with a flag just waving a flag just, you know, in honor of CJ and what had happened.

10:13 There was a motorcycle ride because obviously it was a motorcycle cop motorcycle ride with like 500 plus bikes, you know, people from all over the place came out and did a memorial ride over the weekend.

10:25 And there were a lot of CrossFit gyms that did stuff as well. My cousin trained at a CrossFit gym here in Oklahoma City, Edmond called CrossFit 822. And so like Friday night at like, I don't know, like eight o'clock, my wife gets a message from somebody in her Sunday school and she's like, "Hey, my CrossFit gym is doing a memorial workout for CJ tomorrow. Would you or Kyle like to participate?"

10:50 And I remember thinking like, throughout the week, I'm like, "Man, like this guy did CrossFit and I know CrossFit, they're real big on memorial workouts and getting together and doing stuff like that. Like, man, I'm so mad. Like, why is anybody doing anything? Like, I would love to do something like that."

11:02 And I just, I wasn't aware, but people were doing that. And so I ended up getting the information and it was a buddy workout. I'm actually, let me pull up the workout here on my phone because the workout wasn't random. It was very specific.

11:17 So this is a Sergeant CJ Nelson 822 tribute workout of the day, four time with a partner, an 800 meter run together, then 22 rounds, alternating of five pullups, 10 pushups, 50 walking lunges, and then a 519 double under buyout.

11:38 Okay, so the 800 meter run was basically, you know, because CJ loved running and he was pretty fast, so that was the run at the beginning, 22 rounds of the five pullups, 10 pushups, and then the 50, 50 foot walking lunge.

11:55 That was because one time he did a, I guess it's Cindy is the crossfit workout. He did 22 rounds of Cindy in 20 minutes. And so that was the reason for the 22 and then 519 was his badge number. And so that was the 519 double unders.

12:10 So at the last minute, I got my, my boy, Jermaine. So otherwise known as downtown Jermaine Brown or Jermaine, the athlete, if you guys follow my, my foxhole. And I called him the night before and said, Hey, brother, this is a team workout to honor my cousin, like, let's go, let's get it.

12:26 And, you know, to his credit and to his wife's credit, like he dropped everything and showed up the next morning early, which is not really his style, but he showed up early and got there and we knocked out the workout.

12:36 I'm pretty certain we finished it, you know, ahead of everybody else. And that was kind of the thing for me is I was going to empty the tank on this one. And, you know, the night before I couldn't really sleep because I was like nervous because anytime you know you're about to empty the tank physically.

12:49 And when you're emotionally kind of beat up, like that's, that's kind of a, you know, crazy place to be mentally.

12:55 And so that was, that was an interesting thing. When I went out there, there were a lot of people there. They had way more people than they were expecting firefighters were out there, police were out there, SWAT was out there.

13:08 A fire engine came by and the kids came out and, you know, doing the workout. That's an especially brutal workout, even when you're doing it with a buddy.

13:16 But, you know, it was just cool to kind of see the community come together.

13:20 And then there were the couple of days, you know, leading up to the funeral, like every time you go on social media, somebody's posting something, you know, whether it's the city of Edmond or the Edmond Police Department or some random church or, you know, some random restaurant, like, and they're trying to do stuff to come

13:33 around the police community and things like that.

13:36 And then we get to the funeral, which the funeral was on Monday, the 25th.

13:41 So this is going to be coming out a few days later. I'm actually recording this a day after the funeral.

13:46 So somewhat amazingly, this is the first Edmond Police Department officer to die while in the line of duty in the history of the city.

13:54 And so, you know, that's, that's a long history. I don't know how long the police department has been here, but I believe the city's well over a hundred years old and just it's incredible that that's, that's, he's the first one to die while on duty.

14:07 So I knew the funeral would be huge. As you can imagine, the funeral would absolutely be huge. So the location of the funeral changed a couple of times.

14:16 I think it was because it kept growing the size of the funeral kept growing, but it was hosted at Crossings Community Church.

14:21 So thank you to Crossings Community Church for hosting this. But also, I'm pretty sure Crossings Community Church has like the biggest sanctuary in the city or something like that.

14:31 It's, it's, it's something to do with that and kind of where the ride was going to be and all that. So, so that where it was going to be.

14:39 So there was a room that they had for the family to gather beforehand. And so a lot of the extended family was there in the room and it's kind of one of the things, you know, it's a little bit of a reunion.

14:48 Unfortunately, funerals can become a bit of a family reunion. So, you know, there's chatting and hey, how you doing and how's the job and how's this and how's that. And there were several times while in the room where everyone was silent all at the same time.

15:02 Because it's like, it's like you all stop being distracted for five seconds. And, you know, you realize this is why we're here and this friggin sucks, right?

15:11 And my cousin Jen C.J.'s widow and the two kids walk in and it was a moment of reverence for the family because you know what they're all going through.

15:22 And the kids are handling it in different ways. And, you know, that's, you know, for the family to know.

15:27 But I noticed something about Jen when she walked in because my cousin Jen, I love her. She's a very, very emotive person. She's very emotional. She's very empathetic.

15:37 You know, she's an elementary school teacher, right? You kind of have to be.

15:40 And when she walked in, I expected her to be exasperated, exhausted, you know, covered in tears and all that. And that's just not how she looked.

15:51 She, I don't know, like she just looked like she just had something in her. Just some strength that I wasn't expecting to see when she walked in.

16:05 And then the pastors came in and kind of gave us the lay the land and told us what it was going to be like and all that.

16:12 And then we were going to do the walk to the sanctuary.

16:15 Now in this church, again, this church is gargantuan. We're in a family room and it was a long walk to the sanctuary.

16:22 And the entire way on both sides of the family were honor guards from all over.

16:32 Every service, every station you can imagine. I tried to recognize, you know, the different badges and the different, you know, dress uniforms and all that.

16:41 But just hundreds and hundreds of first responders lining the path for the family to go into the sanctuary.

16:48 And there was a enormous man. This guy was like six, seven or six, eight old guy with a beard playing, going home on the bagpipes.

16:59 And it felt like that's all you could hear in the entire zip code.

17:03 You could have heard a pin drop. Otherwise, and to be honest with you, I was so distracted and so moved by the spectacle of all these people sitting there at attention.

17:14 And I would look some of them and some of them were in tears and it was just, I mean, it was so heavy.

17:20 And, you know, bagpipes is like cheating. You know, obviously you play bagpipes.

17:24 And if you have any Irish or Scottish blood in you, especially Scottish blood, of course, you're going to start crying. It's totally cheating.

17:30 But we finally get to the door of the sanctuary and it is just a sea of people.

17:36 And to be honest, I'm just trying to hold it together. I'm trying not to trip over the, you know, feet of the people in front of me, you know, fall on my face and the sanctuary was full.

17:48 And I found out later that the overflow room was full. They had a bunch of people getting it on the live stream.

17:55 But then it's time to sit down. It's time to get this over with, right? Time for the service. I figured it was going to be a long one.

18:01 But I wanted to give a special shout out to the officials. So pastor Clark Fraley of Coffee Creek Church. That was the church that my cousins family attended.

18:09 And then Reverend Josh Attaway from St. Luke's Methodist also in Edmond.

18:13 He was the church where my cousin would do security for them every Sunday. So they were the officials for this.

18:19 Clark Fraley began the service and then Josh Attaway finished.

18:23 And in the middle, there were some personal reflections by the chief of police there for Edmond PD, JD Younger.

18:30 Also Sergeant Mason Long, who was in CJ's Academy class. Sergeant Joe Delpha, which I believe he was also in CJ's Academy class and was also in SWAT with him.

18:40 And then Sergeant Chris Brown. He's actually a guy that I grew up with. He was a police officer in Lawton and then transferred to Edmond PD.

18:47 Chris Brown, he he actually was a motorcycle cop as well. And he wanted to ride CJ's personal Harley in the procession on that day.

18:58 And CJ's personal Harley was in pieces because he was having some some parts powder coated and all that.

19:05 And so he went in there and, you know, did the kind of therapeutic thing of fixing up the bike and getting it all ready to go and the bike looked amazing.

19:12 And he wrote it there the day of the funeral and wrote it out behind the body.

19:18 But the highlight, if you can call it that for the funeral was when my cousin Jennifer got up and gave her remarks at the funeral.

19:27 Now, I did not know that was going to happen.

19:30 Okay, I was not expecting that.

19:35 I'm on the second row and or third row and I can see my cousin.

19:40 And I see a couple of my other cousin, her sister and husband get up and I'm like, Oh, I thought they were just having to leave for some reason.

19:46 And then they go get gin and they walk up on stage while a song was playing and I'm like, I almost lost it immediately because it's like, Oh my God, she's going to speak.

19:56 She's actually going to speak at her husband's funeral.

20:00 And she gets up there behind the microphone and she delivers her prepared remarks.

20:07 And she doesn't even crack.

20:11 Her voice doesn't crack.

20:13 She doesn't shed a single tear.

20:16 She is powered through it.

20:19 Made a couple of very, very subtle jokes.

20:22 You know, gave a couple of glances to her kids with a with a kind of a rise smile.

20:28 And when she was done, she gathered her paper, walked off stage and sat down.

20:35 There was a moment that most people probably missed, but as she was walking back to her seat, she obviously had to walk by the casket, which was closed and I had a American flag on top.

20:45 And she just ran her hand down the side of the casket as she was going to her seat.

20:51 Very subtle, but beautiful at the same time.

20:55 The strength she showed in that moment, the poise reminded me of a church.

21:01 I think another funeral that happened to that church.

21:03 It was Monty Williams, who's he was the thunder assistant coach of the time and his wife was killed by a drunk driver.

21:09 And, you know, he just gave up there.

21:11 He came up there and delivered, you know, a very famous eulogy where he said, I know where my wife is.

21:16 And it was just beautiful.

21:17 And he never cracked my boy, JC Aarrington, who's in my foxhole when his father died and passed away, like the rock that he was for his, you know, holding his wife and, you know, his siblings as they're walking down the aisle and just the remarks he delivered.

21:31 And I'm just sitting there and I'm like, man, that's what strength is because I'm, dude, I'm a junkie for strength.

21:36 I love watching feats of strength.

21:38 I love watching strong man competitions and, you know, these extreme physical things.

21:42 But then you see someone show just the intestinal and mental and spiritual fortitude in a moment like that.

21:48 It is absolutely entrancing.

21:51 It was, it was amazing.

21:53 It was just, it's so hard to even put into words.

21:55 I was so proud of my cousin.

21:57 And then the funeral wraps.

22:01 They, they escort everybody out and outside they're going to be doing the full police funeral ceremony.

22:08 There were three folded flags, one for each kid and one for the widow.

22:16 There were bagpipes again.

22:21 There was a helicopter flyover.

22:25 The hearse was the Edmund SWAT vehicle and appropriately so.

22:34 And I'd held it together for most of the most of the day up to that point, trying to be strong for the family, trying to be strong for my cousins and all that.

22:42 But then they did the final radio call.

22:49 If you've ever heard a final radio call, they will call out the badge number.

23:02 And they will pause, wait for a response.

23:11 That they know is not coming.

23:15 And then they will call the badge number again.

23:27 Silence again, they will call it one more time.

23:40 So that was tough. That was tough on everybody.

23:49 Then the procession made its way out.

23:58 Thank you to the fire departments for having their, their ladder trucks out there with a flag between them and all that.

24:03 And I'll do my best to stop snorting the microphone. Sorry, guys.

24:10 Then the family had a final goodbye with CJ, and that'll be between us, and then we all had dinner together. Thank you to St. Luke's for doing that for us.

24:24 Then we all went home to whatever new normal looks like.

24:31 Something to do some personal reflections on CJ and then also to do some random thoughts. So for any of you that have hung around this long, you know, this is very personal to me.

24:39 And maybe you care about me. Maybe you care about the show. That's why you're still listening. But there's some things that are very, very pertinent to you that I want to get to. But in terms of my reflections on CJ, that'll be very similar to a lot of other people's reflections.

24:51 First thing, he was a very positive guy, which for a guy like me.

24:56 When you're around someone that is so unbelievably positive, it's like annoying.

25:01 It's like, do you ever have a bad day? Can you just, you know, can you not smile? You're being very awkward and annoying right now.

25:07 But he was just so unbelievably positive.

25:10 The other thing for him being from Hawaii was he was very relaxed.

25:15 He was late a lot of the time because he was on island time. There was nothing you could do to really, he was kind of unflappable in a lot of situations, which being a motorcycle cop and being in SWAT, you kind of need that.

25:27 He was involved in a couple of operations where, you know, he put his life on the line and I'll leave it at that to save kids.

25:35 And he did it without hesitation because he was so relaxed. He was relaxing these moments where other people are amped up and maybe aren't the best person to send in when somebody's armed and barricaded.

25:45 And I guess the last thing I'll mention in reflections of him is just how dedicated he was, you know, certainly dedicated to his family, to family time and to that he was dedicated to his craft as a police officer.

25:58 He loved being a police officer. There are people that just do it because it's a job, right? And then there are people that love it. They're built for it, right?

26:08 So if I describe him just positive, relaxed and dedicated and that was certainly echoed and has continued to be echoed since then.

26:15 But now I have some some random thoughts that I want to get to before we get you guys out of here. The first one is, this is one of the first things I thought of after I picked my kids up from school after I found out that this had happened.

26:27 Is, as you can imagine, you hold your kids and you hug your kids a little tighter, right? When something like this happens.

26:37 So the first thought had was, why does it take a tragedy for us to hug our families a little tighter?

26:43 I'm certainly not the first person to point something like this out.

26:47 But we wait until this extreme tragedy, right? Before we're like, oh, man, I really want to hug you a little bit longer and you just spend a little bit more time looking at you and smelling your hair and, you know, all that, right? Why does it take that?

27:00 So just life, right? We get distracted by work and hobbies and everything else. And we forget what we actually care about.

27:08 Another random thought I had is that morning, CJ is not as much about mourning what we lost, but mourning what will never be.

27:17 So I go back to this was years and years ago. So again, most of you know, I'm a St. Louis Cardinals fan.

27:23 Stan Musial died. So Stan Musial, one of the greatest baseball players ever, the greatest St. Louis Cardinal of all time. He died. He died in his 90s, but around the same time.

27:32 After that, Oscar Tavares died. So you may not know that name. But Oscar Tavares was one of the best prospects that the Cardinals had in their system. He came up to the major leagues made a splash and he was a future of the franchise, right?

27:46 Well, he died in a car accident in the Dominican Republic, I believe.

27:51 And so Cardinals fans were mourning to people that they didn't know personally, but kind of felt like they did because they were fans of a team, right? And I remember making the comment that we're mourning Stan Musial because of what was and we weren't mourning Oscar Tavares because of what will never be.

28:06 So to a degree, we're mourning who we knew CJ to be and who we knew.

28:11 The impact that he had, but we're also mourning the stuff that he's not going to be around for.

28:17 He's not going to be around to walk his daughter down the aisle. He's not going to be around to, you know, be there for his son. The first time his heart breaks. He's not going to be there for those things.

28:28 So that's, that's the weird part about this morning is that it's a morning that won't stop again. Look at my dad 50 years later.

28:35 That's a wound that never goes away, never fully heels.

28:39 What I thought I had is that the real ministry to the Nelson family won't begin for a very long time.

28:49 So they're being drowned right now, right? You know, it was killed about a week ago.

28:53 You know, there's constantly, you know, people dropping off gifts and you know, dropping off money and there, there's all kinds of funds and hey, let's set up a scholarship in his name. Let's name a road after him.

29:01 What about three or four months from now? It'll be the holiday season. People will be distracted with work and trips and family. They don't like coming into town and all that other stuff and who's going to be thinking about the Nelson's.

29:15 So that's a good reminder for you guys. It's certainly going to be a reminder for me is when you're in the normal habits of your life, realize that somebody else has a gaping hole in their family that you can't fill.

29:30 But there are needs that can be met by you and by your Sunday school and by your church family, by your neighborhood, by your whatever your civic group, your team, your squad, your foxhole.

29:45 Because that's the thing that I'm going to remember because with this family, they're going to be mourning a lot of first.

29:51 First baseball game without dad, first softball game without dad, first daddy daughter dance without dad, first Halloween, first Thanksgiving, first Christmas, first birthday, first anniversary.

30:03 They're going to be mourning all over the place for a very, very long time.

30:09 So anyone listening to this that knows the Nelson family just know these first few weeks are going to be a blur of people helping. And then all those people will move on at some point that's not our flexion on them as much as it's a reflection on the

30:20 continuation of time. And we're all moving in a particular direction.

30:25 A few other thoughts.

30:27 I guess just in general, whether that, you know, comes to be a part of this case or not or just in general, stop being so distracted while you're driving.

30:37 I mean, we live in an era now where, you know, with cell phones and technology and all these different substances and there's, there's so many things that you could be doing while in a car other than completely focused on driving.

30:49 I mean, you're in a several thousand pound machine that can, you know, get you to your destination or, you know, it could end up very, very badly for you.

31:00 And so that's, that's one thing for me, like I have to do a good job of making sure I don't get distracted while I'm driving and encouraging the people whose vehicles I'm in to do that as well.

31:09 And so again, there's, there's going to be an investigation here in this case to figure out exactly what caused this or what the likely probable cause of this was.

31:19 But man, just in general, I think it's good generalized advice to just not be distracted in any way, shape or form while you're driving.

31:27 This is another one that is going to rub some of you the wrong way, but that's fine for love of God by life insurance.

31:33 And for those of you that know me personally, you know that I, you know, been licensed in life insurance and I've done that for a long time by insurance from somebody.

31:42 I don't care who if they advertise at a college football game by insurance from them.

31:48 I have permanent life insurance and I have term life insurance.

31:52 Great.

31:53 Buy some of both.

31:54 Buy some universal life.

31:55 I don't care.

31:56 And so I'm not going to get into the specifics of this family and their situation, but I've sat in enough rooms with couples.

32:02 That had no plan in place if something were to happen to the other person.

32:07 No plan.

32:08 Hopes and dreams.

32:10 You want to be super sad?

32:12 Go to GoFundMe.com and just look at the number of people that are trying to get 10 or 15 grand to pay for a funeral.

32:18 Why are they doing that?

32:20 Because the family didn't plan.

32:22 The family didn't have cheap term life insurance to cover things like that.

32:29 Because here's the other thing and every family is a little bit different.

32:32 For my family, I want to make sure that my wife doesn't have to potentially run into the arms of another man if I were to die.

32:40 I want her to have enough money to her.

32:42 Not only are all the bills covered, not only are the boys taken care of until they're out of the house, but she doesn't have to work ever again.

32:49 That's the decision that we've made as a family, right?

32:52 Most people don't have those options because they don't make the right calls.

32:56 They don't sign on the dotted line and pay that money.

33:00 That doesn't sound fun.

33:01 It's much more fun to go to a concert or go out to eat or do something like that.

33:04 But pay that money.

33:06 Life insurance isn't about you.

33:08 Life insurance is about the people that you will leave behind.

33:11 Get as much of it as you could possibly get.

33:15 I've never spoken to a widow or a widower.

33:17 That was like, man, I really wish I didn't have all this money.

33:20 Now, every single one of them would trade that money to have their spouse back, obviously.

33:25 But not a single one of them's like, gosh darn it.

33:28 Life's just been way too easy since they died.

33:30 I just wrote a check for all our debts and, you know, I put all the rest of it into annuity and I can just take care of the kids for the next decade as we mourn the passing of their father.

33:40 Yep.

33:41 Never heard anyone say that.

33:43 Never heard anybody lament the fact that they had too much money after they lost a loved one.

33:49 So buy life insurance.

33:50 Get it from anywhere that you can get it.

33:54 Also, there's a really big difference between just let me know if you need anything and just showing up.

34:01 And I know when something happens like this, people get frozen and they're like, hey, just let me know if you need anything.

34:05 Let me know if you need anything.

34:06 We got a lot of that.

34:07 I know Jennifer and the kids have gotten a lot of that.

34:10 It's taxing on those people because here they are trying to get through the situation, trying to mourn.

34:17 And here you are giving them a to do list like, hey, add me to your to do list.

34:20 Think of something that Timmy and Tommy can do for you.

34:23 I know it's well meaning.

34:25 Do something else.

34:26 Show up.

34:27 When I was walking out of the family house the day after this happened.

34:31 There were six people in their flower beds just working with the mulch, pulling some weeds, just taking care of business.

34:38 I doubt they even asked permission.

34:40 They just showed up.

34:41 They weren't there when I got there.

34:42 They just showed up.

34:43 So showing the hell up as a whole lot better than just let me know if you need anything, right?

34:48 Put me on your list.

34:49 Another thing is show your first responders in your community that you care.

34:54 I know you don't always like it in the ticket.

34:57 I know every now and then you're angry whenever firefighters kind of blocking your roadway to kind of help out with something and you're redirecting traffic.

35:04 And I get it.

35:05 And I know that, you know, paramedics sometimes like it's, you're late for work.

35:09 And gosh, now you got to pull aside the roads.

35:11 These paramedics can get through and I know life can be kind of annoying if you're a selfish turn, but show these people that you respect what they do.

35:18 That's a really, really hard job.

35:20 All of our law enforcement officers, all of our first responders.

35:23 It's a really, really hard job shown that you care.

35:26 Gosh, I mean, I'm so proud of the city that I live in for the amount of love they've shown to the police department since this has happened.

35:33 But I want to make sure that they continue doing so even when that's not happening.

35:37 So this next part's kind of hard, but I did want to make sure to mention this.

35:41 We should all be praying for Jay fight.

35:43 That's the man that killed my cousin.

35:45 Not only was the family and loved ones of CJ Nelson, not only were all those lives changed, everyone that's attached to him, their lives are changed forever as well.

35:57 And again, there's a lot still to be determined about this case and about his guilt or innocence and any number of things that could come up.

36:08 But there are a lot of people that love him that I'm sure are in pain. I don't know anything about the guy aside from, you know, what's been reported on the news.

36:17 I don't know if he has a wife and children.

36:19 I don't know if he's got a big, you know, community of people around him that love him or not.

36:23 Like I have no idea about any of that, but I can assume that there are people that are in pain right now because of the situation that he's in.

36:30 And so as rough as it is on us and certainly it's rough and will continue to get even rougher as we move into the future.

36:38 One of the things that I'm going to basically force myself to do is to pray for that man.

36:44 And to pray for their family.

36:49 And I would certainly hope that they would be doing the same for me and my family.

36:54 Also, we should all and I would welcome you all to pray for the Nelson family.

37:00 Again, as I mentioned before, there's, there's no real getting over this.

37:07 Again, the kids are so young to where they get it, but they don't get it at the same time.

37:11 That was one thing my dad mentioned when he lost his dad at 13, he mentioned he's like, those kids aren't going to, they're not going to understand what's happening.

37:17 And, you know, I was like, in my head, I'm like, that doesn't make sense. The kids are old enough. It's not like they're, you know, two years old, like they get it.

37:24 But he was right. I don't know that they fully get it and they're not going to fully get it. They're going to have to continue to grapple with it and wrestle with it as they move forward.

37:32 So please join me in praying for Jennifer, Emily and Connor and the rest of our family as we try to traverse what all this looks like.

37:42 But the last random thought I'll leave you with before we try to wrap up is without the gospel.

37:48 None of this matters.

37:52 None of it.

37:57 There's no hope at the funeral, doing a funeral in a supposedly holy building versus, you know, a barn. That doesn't make a difference.

38:09 But if we're just highly evolved primates.

38:15 You know, we used to be monkeys or chimps and then we used to be fish and, you know, we used to be goo and now we're us and we think and we love and we cry and we pray and we do all those things.

38:26 If that's what you honestly think that we're just, you know, random chance and time and space and all of a sudden we're here without the gospel. No, this matters.

38:39 If your worldview isn't rooted in the truth of the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross.

38:45 There's no reason to cry. There's no reason to mourn.

38:48 Right? Your worldview doesn't allow for that.

38:52 Survival, the fittest is your worldview. And according to you, you would have to say that. Well, he died early. So I guess he wasn't the fittest somehow.

39:01 But I'm going to go to the third chapter of John. Obviously, most of you know, John 3 16, but I want to read through the entire section. These are all the words of Jesus because this is everything.

39:11 This is your entire eternity.

39:14 So starting in verse 16 through verse 21.

39:23 For God did not send his son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already because he has not believed in the name of the only son of God.

39:36 And this is the judgment.

39:37 The light has come onto the world. The people love the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil for everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, less his works should be exposed.

39:49 But whoever does what is true comes to the light so that it may be clearly seen that his works have been carried out in God.

39:59 So guys, as we wrap up here, I'm going to draw your attention to a few things. I'm going to read the obituary for my cousin.

40:08 We're going to play going home on the bagpipes. That's how we're going to end today.

40:13 But also, I do want to direct your attention to a link in the show notes. Everybody's asking what can they do? What can they do for the family? There is a memorial fund that's been set up in CJ's honor, where 100% of the proceeds are going to go to the family to support them during this time.

40:29 That is the first link that's going to be in the show notes. It's called, but you do need it when you click on the link. You have to go to the drop down box. This is important. Go to the drop down box and select Nelson Memorial Fund.

40:40 Because if you just give it, it's going to go to this church that set it up and not specifically to the family. So go to the drop down box and select Nelson Memorial Fund. And then I've got some links to the news stories.

40:51 And then I've got a link to going home, which is played on the bagpipes. I don't think I have permission to use this song. So if it gets deleted later or, you know, the volume goes away, you'll know exactly why.

41:01 But it was performed by this particular guy on a YouTube channel going home on the bagpipes. And so I want to make sure to have that there to give the guy all the credit as possible. But I feel very strongly that this needs to be played.

41:12 So let me go and see if we can get through this obituary here.

41:16 Christopher James, CJ Nelson, loving husband, devoted father, cherished son, beloved brother and dedicated police officer tragically lost his life in the line of duty on Tuesday, July 19, 2022 at the age of 38.

41:27 CJ was born on September the 22nd, 1983, and Honolulu, Hawaii, to Kelly, spear rig, De Leosie, and Leo, Willie Nelson.

41:38 His early childhood was spent on the beaches of Hawaii, where he loves spending time with his family and eating pizza, which was his favorite food.

41:44 From a very young age, she's CJ had an extraordinary interest in baseball. CJ was a light of his mother's mother's life. She never missed an event and he could always count on looking up in the stands and seeing her face cheering him on.

41:55 His stepfather, Nick's military career, took him all over the western coast of the United States. Nick always had time to coach CJ in the game he loved and passed on one of his, one of his only rules of having fun over winning.

42:07 It didn't matter where they were living. CJ always returned to Hawaii during the summers and developed a close relationship with his uncle Timo.

42:14 He admired uncle Timo who was a professional baseball player and police officer and aspired to be just like him.

42:19 His parents actually enjoyed parent teacher conferences as his teachers always had wonderful things to say and report about CJ's behavior and academic ability.

42:26 CJ was raised in the Christian faith and was baptized in 1983 and rededicated in 1995.

42:31 After being stationed in Lawton, Oklahoma, CJ attended Lawton Christian School for middle and high school.

42:37 When Kelly and Nick took him on a tour of the facilities for the first time, his eyes lit up when he saw their batting cages in baseball field.

42:43 It was at Lawton Christian School that CJ met his lifelong friend Trey Fox. CJ and Trey were typical high school boys and always seemed to find mischief.

42:51 Trey introduced CJ to hunting and together developed a love of big guns.

42:55 CJ was the best big brother to Brady, who was nine and a half years younger and let Brady tag along any time he wanted to.

43:01 He would even take him to high school parties because the cute little brother could get him a lot of attention.

43:06 After graduating high school in 2001, CJ attended Cameron University. There he played shortstop and catcher for the Aggies baseball team and was a plus academic scholar.

43:15 He graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree in Criminal Justice in 2006.

43:19 It was at Cameron during a plus scholar flag football game that he met the girl who matched his love of adventure and competitive spirit and shortly after asked her to be his wife.

43:28 After graduating from college, CJ returned to his native Hawaii and joined the 157th recruit class of the Hawaii Police Department.

43:35 It had always been a dream to become a member of the Honolulu police force and he proudly served his city from 2007 to 2009.

43:42 CJ and Jennifer were united in marriage, Vegas style on April the 21st, 2007.

43:47 They began their married life together in the paradise of Hawaii but decided to move back to Oklahoma in 2009 to put down their roots.

43:53 The couple chose Edmund, Oklahoma as their home. CJ continued his life in law enforcement by joining the 0101 Academy for the Edmund police department in 2009.

44:04 After graduating from the Academy and becoming a member of the Edmund police department, CJ joined the motorcycle patrol unit.

44:09 CJ was especially proud of the fact that he was able to serve his community as a member of the SWAT team.

44:14 They were recognized by the committee of 100 for display of exceptional courage and bravery in the face of extreme danger.

44:19 CJ was a seven time top cop buckle down award recipient as a representative of the Edmund police department.

44:25 CJ was always willing to talk to citizens about his job and how much he loves serving and protecting his community.

44:30 He especially enjoyed showing off his motorcycle to children and always made time to explain.

44:34 Jennifer and CJ enjoyed traveling to different beaches together.

44:37 They made sure they always to always share early morning coffee and talk about what their day would hold.

44:41 They loved exploring new restaurants and food. They enjoyed sneaking away together on his motorcycle with no destination in mind.

44:47 The couple welcomed two children Emily in 2011 and Connor in 2015.

44:51 CJ adored his children and his greatest joy was sharing his love of baseball with them.

44:56 Like a stepfather, CJ helped coaches children on and off the field and instilled in them a strong work ethic and love for physical activity and adventure.

45:03 When he was not serving the Edmund community, CJ was an active member of his gym and enjoyed CrossFit and training others.

45:08 He had just achieved becoming a licensed personal trainer and looked forward to building a client base and a gym that he and his friends constructed.

45:14 He enjoyed rebuilding and riding motorcycles. A passion he shared with his father Leo.

45:18 They took long road trips together building priceless memories for them both.

45:22 He also enjoyed time with his friends and family on the golf course.

45:24 Christopher James is survived by his wife of the home.

45:27 Also of his home are his daughter Emily and son Connor.

45:30 Additionally, he survived by his mother and stepfather Kelly and Nick spirit spirit dig Leozy sorry.

45:36 Millie Lonnie Hawaii, his father Leo Willie Nelson of Washington, his brother Brady spirit dig Leozy of Millie Lonnie, Millie Lonnie Hawaii.

45:46 Mother and father in law, Deb and Joe fairing of Lawton sister and brother in law Stacy and Matthew justice of lawton.

45:51 His Edmund police department family and numerous uncles, aunts, cousins, nieces and nephews.

45:56 He is preceded in death by maternal grandparents John R. and K Donahue, paternal grandparents, James and Annamarie Nelson in many aunts and uncles.

46:07 Love you, buddy.

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