Delos Reyes’
funeral a moving
comment on life
cut short

Family and friends gather to
remember the popular young
victim of a car crash

---

By Rod Antone
Star Bulletin

THERE WAS no mention of dangerous roads, hazardous driving or who was to blame during the funeral ceremony for Andrew Delos Reyes.

Instead, family and friends talked about Reyes' life, his love for others and the little things that people remember about other people.

Like showing off his physique.

"He'd often walk around the house flexing," said eulogy reader Tatsuhiko Hikijii, "asking people, 'How's this body?'"

There was laughter after that, but not enough to overcome the sounds of tears and sobbing. Some young men and women were dressed in the same yellow-and-black jacket that Reyes wore -- members of the same wrestling team who came to see their fallen captain.

Andrew Delos Reyes was 18 when he, along with two other Mililani teenagers, died in a car crash on Kaukonahua Road on April 12.

During the funeral last night at Mililani Memorial Park and Mortuary, Reyes' girlfriend, Ashley Jones, recalled how "his smile got to me" when they first met, and the time that Reyes promised her they would always be together.

Jones also recalled what she screamed in disbelief when she first heard he was gone.

"No! He promised! He promised!" she said.

There was more than a thousand people who came last night to comfort Jones as well as family members. The crowd was almost impossible to count because even during the funeral service, they kept coming in, crowding into the mauka chapel to see the young man in the yellow-and-black jacket.

One by one they paid their respects.Not everyone caught everything said during the service -- just bits and pieces of the life of a young man whose life had just begun.

Perhaps they heard of his love for his mother, how one of his favorite singers was Bob Marley or how he almost became OIA state wrestling champion but lost by one point.