Article content continued

Years ago, Colin had been hospitalized after he had been stabbed at a party. According to his dad, he was standing up for a girl who was being beaten and didn’t realize until later that he had been injured, provoking a serious infection.

Brent suspected Colin had been involved in the drug trade, but he never knew for sure. His son had told him years ago he was trying to leave gang life behind, that he was “trying to work something out with these guys,” but at the time his son admitted, “it’s hard to get out of it.”

Everything changed when Aubree was born, Brent said. Colin gushed over his little girl. Whenever he was around, she insisted to be by his side, holding his hand.

“His love for his family is probably the biggest thing that’s going to touch everybody at his funeral,” Brent said.

During the summer, Colin helped the wife of a friend who had died, working for her on her landscaping business — something Brent believed showed loyalty and respect. Before that, Colin worked in construction installing siding for a contractor who later went out of business.

Although he tried walking away from his former life, he was not forgotten. Two or three months ago police told Colin that his life was in danger, that his name was on some kind of gangster hit list.

“He kind of shrugged it off, I think,” Brent said. “He kept an eye out for that kind of stuff all the time. But he never wanted to move away from his family. We were all here.”

In a few years, Brent hoped the local economy would recover and elevate housing prices, so he could sell his Calgary home and move to Saskatchewan with his son to start up a family-run siding and eavestrough business. Colin seemed to like the idea of leaving his troubled past behind him, to move on with his family and start a new life together.

But they never made it to Saskatchewan.

“If there are any parents that have got kids that are thinking they’re OK with this (lifestyle), that it’ll be a phase in their life, it’s not a phase,” Brent said. “Once you join a gang, you’re there until you’re dead or until you’ve gone to jail.

“And even after you’ve gone to jail, when you get out there’s no getting away from it again. They pretty much make you do that, the gang life. They put you in the position where you have to do those things.”

rsouthwick@calgaryherald.com

twitter/ReidSouthwick