After their dad passes away, three boys and a mother use sports and family to cope with their loss

POLSON — Every time Kellen Hoyt would walk to mound to pitch at the beginning of an inning, he would tip his cap. This gentlemanly gesture was something of a tradition for him and his dad, Chris.

“I’d look into the stands and he’d tip his hat and I’d tip it back to him,” Kellen said.

On Aug. 23, 2009, Chris Hoyt, a Montana State Trooper from Polson, was off duty when he drowned in an irrigation canal while trying to save his dog. He left behind three boys, Kellen, Traven and Morgen.

“I can still remember every second when I got the first phone call up until after the funeral,” Kellen’s mother Eileen said.

Eileen was at a stop sign in St. Ignatius when she got the phone call about the accident. She said it was a good thing it was at a stop sign because she wasn’t going anywhere after that. A friend that was almost all the way to Missoula turned around when they heard the news, to meet up with Eileen and drive her home.

Eileen said she remembered rocking back in fourth while being driven back home, saying “How am I going to tell the boys? How am I going to tell the boys?”

Fifteen-year-old Kellen and his 11-year-old brother Morgen were playing a baseball video game at the time.

“I can remember what I was doing from a year ago to the funeral then it all went blank,” Kellen said.

Eileen and Chris were divorced at the time of his death. They had met in 1988 and were married by 1993. After they parted ways in 2008, the two shared custody of their children on a week-to-week basis. Both Kellen and Eileen said that the two had gotten along well since the divorce.

“Nobody knew the man better than I did, I spent almost 20 years of my life with the man,” Eileen said. “You definitely don’t spend almost 20 years of your life with somebody and have three kids with them and not have something.”

Eileen said that Chris didn’t have a will, and after his passing, the family went through a long legal process over the rights to the possessions he left behind.

“We had to deal with so much we didn’t have time to breath,” she said. “Every time we thought we could start breathing and get through it, something else happened.”

Eileen said that it took almost the full year with court hearing and lawyers, and that she and the three boys responded to the situation with isolation.

“We laid low, it was better to stay in the house on the hill and keep to ourselves and discuss amongst ourselves and kind of stay out of the public eye,” Eileen said.

The affect on Kellen was quite noticeable.

“I kind of stopped being out going; my attitude about everything went down hill,” Kellen said.

The family said they had been listening to the police scanner on that fateful day and thought that a kid had fallen into the canal.

“We know a lot of kids, you hear somebody possibly drowning in the canal and you think of a kid,” Eileen said. “We don’t listen to the scanner anymore.”

All of them said that the memory is still in their mind like it happened yesterday.

“It’s tough for all of us,” Eileen said. “We still expect him to call us on the phone.”

Kellen said that he remembered when his dad would stop by their room before he left for work everyday to watch his boys sleep.

“He always had that look on his face when he looked at us. I don’t know how to describe it,” Kellen said.

Eileen said that Chris was full of pride and love for his boys.

“He just always had that look especially when he picked us up after he hadn’t seen us for a while,” Kellen said.

Each family member handled the loss differently. Eileen said that 18-year-old Traven took on more of a father role for his younger brothers.

“I made them all grow up,” Eileen said. “Faster than they had to.”

Traven had committed to the army before his father’s death and is currently in boot camp with hope of becoming an Army Ranger with a specialty in ballistics engineering. He left on June 15 and has not been back to Polson yet.

Traven’s younger brother Morgen stayed active playing baseball for the Pirates in the Little League Majors classification. Morgen said that it was fun to be with friends and that his favorite part about baseball was getting on base.

Kellen also found solace in playing baseball. It helped him be social again after he had isolated himself for six months. He said he was getting made fun of at school and he got bad grades.

“For the longest time, Kellen kept himself cooped up in the house,” Eileen said. “Since baseball he’s been really going out and being more social.”

At first, Eileen said that she had struggled with disciplining the boys.

“It was a defensive mechanism,” Eileen said. “I felt so sorry for them I didn’t want to get mad at them for something when they had been through so much already.”

Pitching for the Mission Valley Mariners, Kellen was able to find common ground again and Eileen was able to also get out and watch her boys play in a social environment again.

“Kellen has played baseball with those boys since kindergarten,” she said. “It was like he was venting to his best friends.”

The two said that they still have questions and they still are angry about the passing. That anger was evident out on the mound for Kellen.

“I kind of pushed myself over the limit,” he said. “I got really tired at the end of the year, but I wanted to make my dad proud of me during baseball season so I tried hard to win every game.”

Eileen, who works three jobs, took off every Friday, Saturday and Sunday to make sure that her boys go to those baseball games.

“The kids are the most important thing. I’ll get them where they need to go and get them what they need,” she said. “I would work as many jobs as I had to so they could play baseball.”

Baseball has always been a constant in the family. Eileen’s grandfather was a Brooklyn Dodgers fan before they moved to Los Angeles in the 1950s, then he switched the New York Yankees. That fandom has been passed down to Kellen and the boys.

“My dream would be to play professional baseball for the New York Yankees,” Kellen said.

Along with getting out socially again, the family also returned to the canal where Chris drowned.

“It’s hard to look down and imagine my dad lying in the water,” Kellen said. “That water isn’t that deep, it’s just fast.”

Before their father passed, Chris had asked Kellen and Morgen if they wanted to go on that same walk with the dogs.

”I almost wish I was there,” Kellen said.

While the wounds from the loss are still fresh, there has been some progress.

Eileen said that Chris’ fellow patrolmen Terry Rosenbaum and Jim Sanderson, along with Sanderson’s wife, Tammy, were a huge help.

“They definitely had our backs, they still have our backs even now,” she said.

They acted like a second family, inviting Kellen over for lunch during school and sending letters to Traven during basic training.

Kellen said that he prays every time before he goes out to pitch and that he can feel the presence of his father in the stands. Eileen said that things have gotten better since the legal proceedings are over.

“Life is good,” she said. “I want to get everyone graduated from high school and graduate them from college and if they’re good husbands then I’ve done my job.”

The family said that with a loss like this, things will never return to normal. Events like these change you as a person and you have to come to terms with them. One thing hasn’t changed for Kellen, however.

“When I’m playing baseball,” Kellen said. “I always look into the stands and tip my cap.”