A tragic loss leads Hampton family to deeper faith

At 1 a.m. on a Sunday 16 months ago, Taylor Tix of Hampton received a phone call from her best friend with the worst kind of news: Her husband of 15 months, Colton, was in an accident a couple of miles from home. She needed to get to the scene immediately. And contact his parents.

Taylor arrived during the last 10 minutes paramedics performed CPR, but her 26-year-old husband had died of “a crush injury,” she said, involving a four-wheel utility terrain vehicle.

At age 26, Taylor was a widow.

“Cole said he always knew I was the one for him,” she said. They were friends one year apart at Randolph High School in Randolph, and drew closer to one another her senior year and after she graduated in 2013. Once they started dating in 2016, the feeling was mutual, she said. “We had an epic love story.”

His death derailed life plans. Both had determined to meet career goals by September 2021: for Taylor, that meant completing her bachelor’s degree in nursing, which she did, and for Colton, a journeyman carpenter, it was taking classes to complete his bachelor’s in aviation on a path toward becoming a pilot. They also planned to start a family.

But out of the grief and a search for answers and meaning in the sudden loss of her young, vibrant and loved husband, came a deepening of faith for Taylor — and a conversion to the Catholic faith for her close friend and sister-in-law, Holly.

Colton and his brothers, Cody and Mitch, were raised Catholic by their parents, Mike and Becky Tix, attending St. Mathias in Hampton. Taylor’s mom and stepdad are strong Catholics, she said. Taylor was baptized at St. Pius V in Cannon Falls, where she grew up (moving seven miles west to Randolph in sixth grade). She received first Communion at St. John the Baptist in Vermillion and was confirmed at nearby St. Mathias.

Grieving together

St. Mathias, St. John the Baptist and St. Mary in New Trier are the three parishes served today by Father Michael Tix, who grew up in Hampton and is a cousin to Colton’s grandfather.

On Dec. 6, 2020, Father Tix also received a call, from a relative, about Colton’s death early that morning. Because Colton died in the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, Father Tix celebrated a private funeral Mass for a group of family and friends that met the crowd size precautions at the time.

But to accommodate the many others who were grieving and wanted to pay their respects to the family — including many young adult friends of the couple and their families — “we ended up being a little creative,” Father Tix said.

On Dec. 13, one community member set up a tent for the casket and large family photos on stands. Another person brought heaters for inside the tent “because it was December,” Father Tix said. Someone else delivered straw bales.

“We worked with the funeral home and the Dakota County Sheriff’s office,” Father Tix said, to make sure all knew and agreed with the plan. For four hours, people in their cars drove in a steady stream through the St. Mathias parking lot.

People paid their respects, waving to family members, Father Tix said. A few jumped out and offered a hug.

“People came out of the woodwork because they didn’t know what else to do,” Father Tix said. They showed the best of a small town, he added.

After the funeral, Father Tix reached out to Taylor. Because her life was turned upside down and she didn’t want to stay home alone right away, Taylor was living with Cody, 29, an agronomist, his wife, Holly, 30, an occupational therapist, and their toddler, Dawson, now 3. Last October, Holly gave birth to the couple’s second son, Colton, named after his uncle.

“We offered that to her,” Holly said of staying with them, adding that the two are close friends.

For the first couple of months after Colton’s death, the trio slept in the same room — on mattresses placed on the living room floor, or two on a sectional couch, and the other on a mattress on the floor. For the first month, they often were joined by Colton’s cousin, Justin Weber, and his wife, Kayla.

“We just didn’t want to leave each other,” Holly said.

Holly said she could have stayed with Taylor “but then my husband was grieving, too, so I didn’t want to leave him alone. And we just wanted to be together.”

The sleeping arrangement brought a familiar comfort to the terrible situation. Taylor said she and her late husband had moved their mattress at Christmas so they could sleep by the tree. When Cody was out of town for work, Taylor and Colton had sometimes moved a mattress at Cody and Holly’s home so the three of them could sleep in the same room to help with Dawson.

After Colton’s death, Holly said, sleeping on mattresses on the floor was “just a way that we could be there for each other.”

“It’s hard to be alone in situations like that,” she said. “No one was sleeping through the night anyway, so we could have somebody there throughout the night.”

Some nights the group talked about faith “and why we thought this happened,” Taylor said. “Sometimes we were just silent, or journaled. We were just what we needed in that moment for each other.”

After a couple months, Cody and Holly converted a craft room to a bedroom for Taylor, “and we started trying to function like adults again,” Holly said.

Taylor began meeting with Father Tix to talk about her husband’s death and whatever else was on her mind. Most of the time they met at Cody and Holly’s home, and the couple joined the conversation. Taylor said she found comfort — and some answers — through those conversations.

“It was more about ‘help me understand,’” she said, but it also involved talking about her anger, not certain at first whether it was toward God.

Father Tix helped her, Holly and Cody comprehend things “in the way that God doesn’t force these things to happen to us,” Taylor said. “And he explained things in a way that made sense to us and broke things down. We were so overwhelmed and confused. He said exactly what we needed him to say.”

Taylor said she felt more at peace after talking with him, that she gained more understanding and was better able to grasp the concept of loss. She found Father Tix personable and relatable, with a sense of humor and ability to make conversations “just natural,” she said.

Finding faith

Cody’s parents sometimes joined the small group for conversation, and “we would talk about all kinds of things,” Father Tix said.

As the comfort level increased, Holly’s defenses decreased, he said, and one evening she mentioned she had never been baptized and that she’d like to do that with her son, Dawson. So, the group started talking about “Church things and faith things,” Father Tix said.

Ultimately, Holly, who said she “was not raised in religion,” decided she wanted to join the Catholic Church.

“For me, it was kind of an intimidating step to take when you’re almost 30 years old, and who do you go to?” she asked. “It just seems super overwhelming. So that’s what held me back for so long.”

During one conversation with Father Tix, Cody opened up about his faith and feelings about “how could this happen,” Holly said. Holly began talking with Father Tix about finding her faith and receiving the sacraments, she said. And the priest looped in another young woman who wanted to join the Church.

Jenessa Mohn, 23, was baptized and confirmed in the Lutheran Church, but during college, she began attending Mass at a Catholic church and liked the feel of it more than other churches she had attended. “As I started going more regularly, I really wanted to grow in my faith,” Mohn said.

Her long-time boyfriend was raised Catholic and the couple have discussed marriage. Being able to marry at St. Mary in New Trier was a big factor in her decision, Mohn said, something both want.

Mohn said she especially looked forward to receiving Communion. Every time she went to Mass and walked up for a blessing or stayed in the pew, “it pulled a little bit more every time,” she said. “I finally got to the point where, you know what? This (becoming Catholic) is what I want to do.”

Mohn made her first Communion and was confirmed at St. Mary on March 6. Her boyfriend’s mother was her sponsor, she said, and “very inspirational in her faith.”

The following week, on Sunday, March 13 — Holly’s 30^th birthday — Father Tix blessed her marriage with Cody, called convalidation. The next Saturday morning, March 19, she was baptized with her two sons and confirmed. After naps that same day for the little ones, Holly received her first Communion at 5 p.m. Mass.

‘A tribute to Father Mike’

Cody is proud of his wife’s decision to join the Church, as is his family.

“I didn’t want her to do it just to make me and my family happy,” he said, “but she pursued it herself.”

Cody is about 10 years older than his brother Mitch, but only a year and a half older than Colton.

“We grew up doing everything together,” Cody said of he and Colton. They attended school, played sports and fished and hunted together. They shared many of the same friends. They did “a lot of construction for our dad” on weekends and some weeknights, he said.

If something good came out of Colton’s death, Cody said, “it really brought us back to faith.”

“We’ve become much more connected with the Church and a lot of it is a tribute to Father Mike,” he said. “He spent a lot of time with us in the last year.”

After Colton died, Holly recalled Cody often saying, “If God is real, then how could this happen? Why would God make this or cause this to happen?”

Father Tix explained that God doesn’t make bad things happen, Holly said, but God is there to support, guide and protect.

“(Father Tix) made it a way that felt more comforting that God was there,” Holly said, “not that God causes it to happen.”

Holly said she has found that the more she learns about and experiences the Catholic faith, the more questions she has and the deeper an understanding she seeks.

Father Tix continues to stay in touch with Taylor, with an open invitation to get together to talk.

“I know he’s always there if I need him, which is huge,” she said. “He is so genuine and cares so much.

Taylor said the way her pastor went out of his way for the entire Tix family, including accompanying Holly as she’s grown in faith, is inspiring.

Losing her husband brought a roller coaster of emotions, Taylor said, but it prompted her to pray more, and it deepened her connection with God.

“It’s made me want to be better,” she said. “I’ve gone to church more. I wanted to know everything, exactly what happened after you die. I wanted to know exactly where Cole was.”

Taylor read “book after book” on religions and beliefs “to see what felt right, to see what felt right for where Cole is.”

All the reading brought her back to “my God and my relationship with him, and just keeping my faith,” she said.

“I think that’s what’s gotten me through,” she said. “As long as you keep your faith, I think that’s what matters.”

---

‘THE RISEN CHRIST AMONG US’

Father Michael Tix, episcopal vicar for clergy and parish services for the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis, grew up in Hampton, about 25 miles from downtown St. Paul. In addition to his duties for the archdiocese, Father Tix serves as parochial administrator of St. Mathias in Hampton, St. John the Baptist in Vermillion and St. Mary in New Trier — essentially serving as pastor of the three parishes, he said, which include nearly 600 households.

While Father Tix did not know Colton Tix, he does know his parents. “His grandpa would be my first cousin,” he said.

Relationships “go to another level when you’re the priest and you’re the relative, too,” he said, which can be a blessing “because sometimes it does give you a toehold.”

Experiencing the aftermath of Colton’s death with grieving family members had many layers for him, he said, from helping relatives impacted by a tragedy to his first time leading sacramental preparation. His previous experience with the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults had been simply celebrating the rite. Personally accompanying these women to the faith was something new.

“I had the experience of being able to walk the journey with them …, which was an honor and a privileged place to be able to welcome them, to be able to hear their story and to help them get to this new place,” he said. “I didn’t know him (Colton), but there’s the piece of knowing that there was the connection that was there that I think did help open the doors.”

The baptism of Holly Tix and her two sons marked the first time he has baptized a mother and two children at the same time. “And then to do that for relatives” was particularly impactful, he said.

Father Tix said part of his role following Colton’s death was letting his loved ones talk and asking “what’s going on inside?” In tragic times, he said, “the age-old question is: ‘Why do bad things happen to good people?’”

Father Tix does not believe God intends harm. God is always about the good, he said. But why do tragic things happen?

“I can’t give an answer and nobody can,” he said. “And … because in those kinds of times, where it’s so vivid and so raw, you’ve got to believe in something beyond yourself, and that’s the pathway to God, I think.”

In the midst of tragedy, the Holy Spirit is alive, he said, and helps good things come from some of the hard things of life.

“Which points to the presence of the Easter story, really, points to the presence of the risen Christ among us,” Father Tix said.