GRAND COUNTY, Colo. (KDVR) — A year after the East Troublesome Fire took the lives of Marylin and Lyle Hileman, loved ones are focusing their grief on growing their parents’ legacy.
FOX31’s Nicole Fierro went back to the Hileman’s property over the weekend to see how their family’s grief has manifested into special projects across the property.
“They created a little bit of a paradise where my family would gather, and no matter where any of us lived, this is where we always wanted to come,” Glenn Hileman, Marylin and Lyle’s son, said. “This property still elicits all the feelings, the memories. That’s how I’m grieving. I just feel this connection to this ground, and I just want to do as much as I can to do it the way that my mom and dad would be pleased.”
Just weeks before the fire took his parents away, Hileman said his mother shared plans for additions to the property they wanted to make.
“On Oct. 4, my mom gave me a piece of paper,” Hileman said. “She said I’ve got a name for a park, and I’d like a pavilion, and she named them both. So that gave us something to focus on when we heard they were gone.”
Watch the video above to see the makings of “Punks Pavillion,” named after what Lyle would call Marylin, as well as the other additions the family has accomplished with the help of other community members over the past year.