Remembering the life of Raymond Kain

WILMINGTON, NC (WWAY) — Family, friends and teachers gathered in Hugh MacRae Park Saturday to remember 17-year-old Raymond Kain. He was killed earlier this month. 17-year-old Tyler Matthew Yee, who Kain’s mother says was a close friend, is charged with his murder.

However, the memorial was not to remember Raymond’s death but to pay honor to his life and the memory he left behind.

Michelle Hajec, Kain’s mother, says this memorial represents the kind of person Kain was.

“My son made me happy and he made me smile all the time. I want to be happy celebrating his life, not what happened to him,” Hajec said.

She worked with others to make a collage of pictures showing Kain with his friends and even had a journal for anyone to write a message to Kain.

Taylor Dearing was Kain’s best friend and said one aspect of Kain would always show through.

“He was very energetic. Pretty goofy, definitely. But he was the type of kid that would light up the room,” Dearing said.

He also recalls that Kain had trouble in school but was working to change all of that.

“He had a lot of rough patches but he was looking up. He finally started getting everything right. He was getting his grades up and talking to his teachers. Then this all happens.”

Kain signed up for the Marine Corps three days before his death and wanted to be a sniper. He was also planning on marrying his girlfriend.

“It doesn’t hit me until certain times. Like in the paper, they wrote that, that was the last picture taken of me and my son and it didn’t dawn on me then that I would never take a picture with my son ever again,” Hajec said.

Family and friends ended the day by releasing balloons in the air, remembering the impact Kain had on their lives.