That’s when Big Mike, president of the Nomad Riders, made the call; “No child goes into the ground alone,” he’d said. “I don’t care whose son he is.”

What none of us knew was that Tommy’s father, sitting in his maximum security cell, had just received the news of his son’s death and was planning to end his own life that night.

The guards had him on suicide watch, but we all knew how that usually ended. What happened next would not only give a dead boy the sendoff he deserved, but would also save a man who thought he had nothing left to live for.

I was drinking my morning coffee at the clubhouse when the call came in. Frank Pearson, the funeral director at Peaceful Pines, sounded like he’d been crying.

“Dutch, I need help,” he said