Pictures in the funeral program of Kyron Aikens showed his growth over 13 years. Early snapshots highlighted his round cheeks. A later portrait showed a confident adolescent resting his arm on his knee, while another had him bent in a wrestling pose. Yet another showed him holding his younger sister in his arms.
"The sky was the limit," the Rev. Keith Paige told mourners Friday at the Cherry Hill Community Presbyterian Church in Baltimore. "And that is why our hurt is so great."
Kyron, a student at Lakeland Elementary/Middle School, died last week after he fell through the ice while out with friends on a pond in Landsdowne. He was 13.
Family and friends who gathered for his funeral were greeted by music from an organ playing next to Kyron's open white casket adorned with white flowers. Several approached to take one last look at the youngster's face.
His young friends crowded in the back. A girl with thick black braids wore a shirt that read "In Loving Memory of Kyron" decorated with photos of him with his friends.
"We have come here to mourn but also remember," Paige said. "We didn't even have a chance to say goodbye" to the youth with "bubbly and infectious charisma."
Kyron was in the chilly water for more than an hour Jan. 25 while his friends and bystanders tried to save him. A team of divers and other rescuers were able to locate him and pull him out, but he died at a local hospital.
Three other boys, Chive Omar Benjamin, 12, and Junior Wilbert Thomas, 8, both of Columbia, and Jujuan Wilder, 12, of Brooklyn Park also fell into the pond at Hillcrest Park behind Lansdowne High School. Two managed to climb out of the water on their own. Chive was rescued by two bystanders. He remains hospitalized but is recovering, his mother said.
Lincola Benjamin said she hasn't yet told her son about his friend Kyron's death because doctors fear it could set his recovery back.
Kyron's funeral program also included messages from his family. His father wrote that his son was "a young man that lived to the fullest, loved with every beat of his heart, and was never afraid to be adventurous."
"Yes he left too soon, but he left behind something that will never leave me — his spirit for life and his love for the world," his father wrote. "He was and always will be the world's angel."
Kyron loved wrestling and Godzilla movies, his family said.
Though just in the sixth grade, he was already beginning to think about his future. He aspired to wrestle in high school, his coach said. After winning a silver medal in a recent competition, his family said, he told his mother he would bring home a gold one next time.
"He leaves behind an emptiness in his room, an emptiness in your classroom, an emptiness on the wrestling mat and on the dirt bike track," Paige said.
But Paige urged the family to take solace that the boy was chosen to lead a different path by God, and said to be thankful that the other children were spared.
"God weeps with you all right now," Paige said.
The Associated Press contributed to this article.
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