The Most Important OSU Homecoming Story You Will Read This Week

Homecoming is a joyous time. Or it is supposed to be. For Niki Strauch and Josh Lucas, this year’s festivities in Stillwater will be a bitter memory barely one year old.

That’s because last year they lost their two-year-old son Nash in the horrific car crash that killed four people during the Homecoming parade before the Kansas-OSU game. All loss is devastating. The loss of a thriving, growing two-year-old maybe most of all.

Stetson Payne of the O’Colly wrote an amazing profile of these two, their son who passed away and the family members surrounding them 12 months later. Here’s how it starts:

Minutes later, Niki screamed so loud she couldn’t hear the squadron of helicopters descending on the intersection, so terrified she thought the nightmare wouldn’t end, so beside herself she couldn’t feel the rotor wash whipping her hair and blood-stained clothes as the helicopter carried her son away forever.

And here’s how it ends.

“He had a room in every other place we’d been at,” Niki said. “He doesn’t have that at my house because he’s not there anymore.”

Everything in between is staggering.

If you read one thing about last year’s Homecoming tragedy this year, please make it this full story. It’s important to remember, not only for Niki and Josh but for our own sake. That each day we get with our kids, parents and friends could be the last one they (or we) ever see.