Soon a memorial for the 27 campers and counselors killed at Camp Mystic will make its way from North Texas down to Kerr County for a second time.
Back in July, the 21-foot steel cross was nearly destroyed by another flood just days after it was dedicated on the anniversary of the one prior.
“It kind of took my breath away,” said welder Michael Collins. “The roads are all gone. The asphalt was gone. There were just trails you kind drive through to get to it, and oh my goodness it’s pancaked. Pancaked is when the square tubing is no longer square.”
Collins said he spent about 230 hours working at his home in Mineral Wells to weld and paint the 1500-pound steel memorial.
He decided right away it would need to make the four hour trip home to be repaired.
“I knew I wanted to fix it and fix it right,” he said.
Collins has spent the last several years welding more than a dozen memorial crosses as part of a mission inspired by his son’s death.
“When I would go sit with Brady’s it would give me a peace,” said Collins.
Now a non-profit, Brady’s Love Cross Ministry hopes to gift that same sense of healing to others who’ve experienced loss.
“We didn’t know each other from Adam and the cross showed up at my property,” said Mark Strand.
Strand joined Collins’s board in the wake of the death of his granddaughter, Athena Strand.
“I realized the hope that it brought seeing the cross on my property,” he said. “That’s what we pray over every cross that goes in the ground now, that the Lord will shine an angel to minister peace to all that look on and pass by them and hopefully receive some comfort.”
Collins said repairing the cross was no small feat.
Inside, four half-inch-thick steel plates reinforce where the steel gave way.
He said the dents and dings serve as a reminder of the storm it weathered, perhaps making the second iteration better.
“It tells such a story of what it’s been through. You know, in the Bible, in a couple of places it says along the river a twig will bend but shall not break, and that’s what we’ve done here,” said Collins.
The cross now stands as a sign of resiliency, just like the community it hopes to heal.
Collins hopes to get the cross back down to Kerrville in the next few weeks.
Brady’s Love Cross Ministry is still raising the necessary funds.
