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Steve Verdin, who is 5 years old, insists that his brother Allen, older by one year, is still sleeping but will be coming home. And when he does, Allen will have a body like a robot.
But Allen is not coming home.
Drowned as the result of a swimming pool accident at a relative’s home on May 16, Allen may have only lived six years, but impressions he left, for a life so young, are memorable and deep.
Steve was his full-time shadow, following him everywhere, though no more attached than their four older siblings.
Allen would amaze all of them with gifts of nature, whether insects or lizards, and not in that teasing, shocking way little boys sometimes have, but as an ambassador to the natural world around him.
“Allen loved the outdoors,” said his heartbroken mother, Jacqueline Verdin. “He would catch butterflies and then later he would release them. One day he caught a lizard and he walked around all day with that lizard on his arm. Frogs, dragonflies, he loved all of them. He was so precious that you just always would have wanted to hug him, if you had met him you would see that he was just so precious. He loved to talk. His eyes, his smile alone, were just irreplaceable. He was always trying to help me, washing dishes, folding clothes, whatever I was doing.”
Leon Brunet Jr., Allen’s grandfather, was stunned by the loss, particularly since Allen had cheated death before, a claim confirmed by his mother.
“Allen had severe stomach problems and actually died three times on an operating table,” Leon said. “He has had so many breathing tubes put down his throat in a few months time that it damaged his vocal cords. That made his speech a little messed up but he was just starting to say his words better.”
Allen called him “Ganpaw.”
“He couldn’t say grandpa,” Leon said. “He used to sit by me, fall asleep on me. He was a special child.”
A favorite pastime for Allen – when the family could make it – was a visit to the Superdome to see the monster truck rallies; his favorite was the one they call “Gravedigger.”
Allen’s fascination with nature carried over to the times he would go shrimping with family members.
On the picking table at the skimmer boat’s stern, Allen would ask her to keep certain by-catch fish aside for him, especially blowfish.
“He would take the blowfish and breathe into them,” Jacqueline said.
She also said that a key element of the boy’s behavior was that he hated to see any kind of conflict, whether among siblings, other children or the adults in his life.
“He was a peacemaker,” Jacqueline said. “He was loving and caring for everybody. If something bothered his brothers or sisters, he didn’t like to see them crying. If he had a toy and they wanted to play with it, he would give it to them. He didn’t like people fussing and he would get to where he got serious around arguments, to make people stop.”
On the last day of his life, she said, Allen was excited by the prospect of going to his cousin’s pool in Chauvin, a short drive away from the family’s home on Aragon Road in Montegut.
“He was ready to go swimming and he was very happy that morning,” Jacqueline said. “His dad told him they were going to send somebody to pick him up and bring him swimming.”
“The way the kids explained it, I really don’t know what happened from the way the kids told it,” Jacqueline said. “They were picking at each other and Allen said to somebody “I am a man,” that’s what somebody heard. There were people everywhere. But as far as knowing anything else I am still questioning. I know that he had floaties on (his arms) in the pool.”
She knows for certain there were older children in the pool, but suspects the adults present were inside the house.
Allen’s death does not mark the first time someone in the family has been claimed by water.
Gabriel Verdin, a cousin of Allen’s, died last year at the age of 19 as the result of a mishap at a commercial Texas dock where he was working.
“He was my nephew by marriage,” Jacqueline said. “We look at this and now it is the second death in the family, the second in the water with Allen in the swimming pool.”
The family was strained financially by the death and a page for donations has been set up at http://www.gofundme.com/ut66evk.
Relatives and friends gathered Thursday and Friday at the Samart Funeral Home in Bayou Blue for final farewells to Allen, and the camouflage coffin was taken to a cemetery a short distance away.
“We put in some Adidas shoes, and I had camouflage pants that he loved to wear, I put them in there with him,” said Jacqueline, who also baked his favorite snack in preparation for the services, which she left with him as well. “He loved his brownies.”
Allen Joseph Verdin died at the age of six in a family member’s pool. Relatives still are not certain of the full circumstances of his death but it has been ruled an accidental drowning.
