September 2, 2015 8:36pm

My name is Greg Maples and I am one of the luckiest men you will ever meet.  My life has been a true blessing from the time I was born thru the day I am typing this post.  Like Nephi of the Book of Mormon I can say that I was born of goodly parents.
In fact I was blessed to have great relatives on both sides of my family.  We weren’t rich or lived in the nicest homes or had all the bells and whistles growing up.  However, I grew up knowing love, family, great food, and spending time together and was taught how to work and work hard.  I married way above myself and have been happily married to Trish Maples for almost 30 years.

We have six children, three boys and three girls.  We also have six grand children, three boys and three girls.  If you would like to know more about our family click on the about page.

We have been so blessed with so much in our life and our children are our greatest gifts and blessings we have ever received.

The day was September 2, 2015 it was a normal Wednesday.  We were scheduled to have the local Missionaries from our Church over for dinner that night.  I had text David (20) our youngest son and Zach (22) our middle son to make sure they would be home for dinner.  David said he would be a little late and Zach was coming back from a trip with his friends and may be there on time, but wasn’t sure.   Hayley was already home.  Trish my wife made steak, baked potatoes, salad and all the fix in’s (Trish is an amazing cook as is manifested in my waist line).  We sat in our formal dining room and ate as a family.  We laughed and had a great meal and a great time telling stories and teasing one another.

David arrived home and I noticed he was wearing a button down light red shirt.  He is 6’6″, muscular and slim, he looked good.  He had such a commanding
presence wherever he went.  Dinner was served and we sat down for a really great meal.  We laughed and told some fun stories with the Missionaries.  After dinner we went into the living room and listened to a message from the Elders.  David, Hayley and Desi (Desi is a 16 yr. old girl from TN staying with us, an old family friend) were sitting on the couch.  I was watching the three of them; they were so young, so fun.  Hayley and David had such a great relationship. I was thinking how lucky I am as father to have these two love each other so much.  After the Elders left I started to clear the dishes from the table.  David jumped in and started helping me.  He was just that kind of boy did things with out being asked and always had a smile and good attitude.

David worked out 6 days a week and he was in great shape; he liked to go to the gym at night.  I knew he still wanted to go and workout.  So, I told him that I would finish the dishes and that I wanted him to get to the gym and come home.  We had not had a chance to have Family Home Evening Monday and I wanted to get the family together when he got home.  David went to his room and changed and I finished the dishes. Trish was in our office doing homework (she attends BYU-Idaho on-line).  After the dishes I sat in the living room with my laptop and was busy doing some work.  My best recollection is it was about 6:30pm.

A few months prior I had started lifting weights and David and I would often talk about our pre-work out powders, our routines, watch YouTube videos etc.  We had recently watched a body building video where the guys in the video didn’t mix there pre-work out with any water and just put the powder straight into their mouth.  We both thought that was really cool.

As I sat in the living room working, David yelled over to me to watch what he was going to do.  He then took a huge scoop of pre-work out straight into his mouth.  The look on his face said it all.  Kind of reminded me of those videos of people who do the cinnamon challenge and eat a spoonful of cinnamon.   We laughed and I told him he would have to tell me when he gets home if he felt any different from taking it straight.  I went back to work and David left to the gym.

About 8:30pm I started to get a little sleepy.  David hadn’t gotten home yet, which wasn’t too unusual.  He could spend 2-3 hrs. in the gym.  So, I wasn’t especially surprised.  I had been getting up really early to get to the gym and get my work out in before I left for work.  Trish gets up at 4:30am everyday as she teaches early morning seminary for our Church.  I went through my normal nightly routine.  I locked all the doors, checked the lights and went to the garage to make sure the garage doors were closed.  When I opened the door to the garage I noticed my truck was still there.  David often times would take my truck to the gym at night.  He must have decided to take his motorcycle that night.  I thought it was odd but didn’t give it too much thought.  I went into the bedroom and continued my routine. I read USA Today on-line like I do every night, then read my scriptures, said my prayers and I was off to sleep.  Felt like a pretty routine and normal night.

I woke up from a dead sleep by Zach our son coming into our room.  He said, “Dad, there is someone at the door and you are going to want to talk to them”.  I looked at the clock and it was 1:00am on the nose.  I thought who in the world could be at my door at 1:00am.  I put on my shorts and shirt with my flip-flops and headed to the door.  On the way the thought came to me, if Zach woke me up to show me that some of Hayley’s friends had toilet papered the house, I am going to be ticked.  When I got to the door and opened it, there was a lady standing there.  She was wearing a kind of uniform.  She had a grey polo shirt on.  I thought for a minute she was a dogcatcher.  I thought to myself, did our dog Mav get out?  Why would she be here at 1:00am to tell me my dog was out?  Then I looked at her shirt.  It had a large logo that read “CORONER”.

I couldn’t believe the words I was reading.  I quickly thought about each of my kids.  I knew Hayley and Desi were in bed and Zach was standing next to me.  I didn’t see David come home but he certainly had to be in his room asleep.  The thought quickly went through my head that maybe it was someone from Church and they were here to have me help tell a family, it just seemed so confusing.  This all happened in the matter of a few short seconds.  She must have seen the look on my face as I tried to make sense of her being on my doorstep at 1:00am.  I was looking down while I was thinking through this when she said “Mr. Maples” my eyes quickly went to hers, “I am here because your Son David was killed tonight in an accident”.

It felt as though time stood still, I couldn’t breath, I felt as if I were falling and I couldn’t catch myself.  My head was spinning.  I looked at her and she said, “Yes it’s true, I am so sorry”.  From behind me Trish was listening and asked what was going on.  I turned to her and blurted out, “David was killed in an accident”.  It didn’t make since to me, it was 1:00am, David would never stay out that late, he had work early in the morning.  He wouldn’t be out that late.   She had to be wrong.

We invited her in, Zach helped Trish and I into the living room where we all sat down.

I want to be very clear right here.  I am telling this story from my perspective, from what I experienced.  I cannot and will not try to explain any of this from Trish’s point of view.  What a Mother experiences with the loss of a child is so tender that I cannot even begin to explain what she experienced.

The pain was so searing that I could almost not take it.  I heard myself moan out loud and say over and over, “Oh my boy, not my boy”.  Trish sat next to me and softly cried.  I couldn’t breath; I thought I was going to be sick.

She explained that David had been on his way home from the gym and while entering the intersection of Centennial Parkway and Durango (an intersection less then a mile from our home) a lady had pulled out in front of him and he hit her.  The light was green both ways and she simply didn’t see David and began to turn and it was just to late for David to do much and he hit the side of her car.  She explained that she had brought a camera with a picture of David from the Coroners office and needed someone to identify David.  I was barely hearing anything she was saying, I could hardly breathe, and there was no way I was going to be able to do it.  Trish didn’t want to look as well.   Zach said he would do it.  He walked over to where the lady was sitting looked at the picture on the camera, I watched Zach as he looked at the camera, everything in me for that one moment wished he would look and say, no ma’am I am sorry that isn’t him.  It wasn’t meant to be he looked at the camera and solemnly said, “Yes that’s David”.   It was our Bubsters.