Whenever Ross Ghostkeeper faced a challenge in his life, his big brother Cody was there to mentor him and give him advice.
“He used to really help me with my school and stuff,” Ross said on April 25, three days after Cody, 23, was killed after being struck by a train in downtown Olds.
“He's too good of a soul to be taken.”
Ross, 17, spoke to the Olds Albertan by telephone from Cody's hometown of Pritchard, B.C., a community roughly 40 kilometres east of Kamloops, and said he had last seen his brother at Christmas when they “hung out and played video games, like always.”
“We talked about school, talked about life,” he said, adding he and Cody often bonded while chopping wood to heat their home.
When Cody was younger, Ross said, he loved to climb anything he could, from power lines to light posts, and that was foreshadowing for the course his life would take in the future.
“I guess that was the first sign of his horticultural thing going.”
Cody was a second-year arboriculture student at Olds College and had studied landscape construction and design at Okanagan College and horticulture at Thompson Rivers University in Kamloops.
Ross said his brother wanted to eventually start his own landscaping business.
A funeral for Cody, presided over by a bishop, was to be held on April 27 in Chase, B.C., he said.
“This was the church we used to go to when he was a boy.”
On April 23, at about 3:40 a.m., Cody was struck and killed after he reportedly walked in front of a northbound train at the 50 Street crossing between 50 and 49 avenues.
Olds RCMP said he was pronounced dead at the scene and Cody was alone at the time of the collision.
Acting Cpl. S.D. Bereza, an RCMP spokesman, said all the safety equipment at the crossing was working properly at the time of the collision and right now, police believe Cody's death was “purely an accident” and that alcohol may have been a factor.
He said the train's engineer reported seeing Cody behind the safety arms as the train approached the crossing and believed the man was simply curious and wanted to watch the train pass.
At the last minute, however, Cody walked “backwards” into the train, Bereza said, referencing the engineer's statement.
Police received reports Cody had been drinking with friends earlier in the evening, he added, but investigators are still waiting on an autopsy report before making a determination about whether alcohol was a contributing factor to Cody's death.
No criminal charges are being considered.
At the college, where Cody also worked at the Crossing, a campus restaurant and pub, Cody's friends, teachers, co-workers and fellow students had set up a memorial board in the Student Alumni Centre including messages of remembrance and photographs of Cody.
“Cody, The soul is forever, you have and will do great things. Miss you,” read one message.
Another read “Cody, you were there for us all. You were the one to make us smile and remember that everyday is a new day. I will miss you and you will always be with me.”
And another read “Cody, Too soon you have gone. But, in us, your memory will remain. May my deepest sympathies ease the minds of the ones closest to you. Never did I feel that your life would come to an end. I miss your smile and our shenanigans. Love Jill!”
Dean Turnquist, an Olds College spokesman, said the college is providing counselling services for students and staff.
On April 25, roughly 150 people gathered at the campus' botanical garden for a tree-planting ceremony in Cody's honour.
Annelise Doolaege, a faculty member with the college's school of environment, said a weeping birch tree was planted and once the garden opens, the tree will be identified in a book so that friends and family members can find it.
Students came up with the idea to plant the tree, she said, and Jillian Macpherson spearheaded the effort.
Doolaege, who taught Cody horticulture, described him as an “interested, calm student that was always active in the classroom and always polite.”
“He was nice to have in the classroom,” she said. “He had a wonderful smile.”
