It was 6:30 a.m. on Nov. 14.
Jim and Stacy Chapin had just walked through the worst day of their lives. Their son, Ethan, was one of the victims of the quadruple homicide. They had just lost their son.
They had seen him a few weeks earlier for parents’ weekend. Never would they have imagined it would be the last time.
Jim and Stacy walked hand in hand up new Greek row that Monday morning. They couldn’t sleep. Their minds were racing. Their hearts were beating out of their chests. They couldn’t grasp reality. They couldn’t believe what had happened.
Jim and Stacy reached Sigma Chi, Ethan’s fraternity. What they witnessed next would be forever cemented into their minds. Ethan’s fraternity brothers were out in the driveway. They were loading up their cars. They were leaving.
“It was tough to look at their faces the day after,” Jim said. “I’ll never forget that.”
“We wound up at the bottom of the house. Their mothers had called them home. And I get it. The kids were flocking. Parents and families were like ‘come home,’” Stacy said.
In that moment, those faces showed Stacy and Jim that they had a responsibility to helping everyone that was hurting. If they could move forward, everyone could.
“Healing our family was one thing, but we kind of made a pact. We saw a whole fraternity, and then a whole university, and then a whole community, and then, honestly, a whole nation that needed to heal from this. We’ve worked hard to help heal,” Stacy said.
As this tragedy gripped the gaze of the nation, Jim and Stacy knew it was bigger than themselves. It was bigger than their family. The couple said they wouldn’t wish the first five months after Ethan’s passing on even their worst enemy.
March rolled around, and the Chapin family gathered together. Stacy said it would have been easy to throw in the towel. It would have been easy to stay in bed. It would have been easy to sink.
“This isn’t going to sink us,” Stacy said.
Jim and Stacy said that it was a priority for them to raise good kids. They taught their kids to be kind. To love those around them. To be respectful. To not sink. They taught their kids that the easy way is not always the right way.
Stacy relied on that mantra over the last year. The easy way is not always the right way. She emphasized how easy it would have been to give up and forget about healing. It would have been easy to focus on the bad, the dark. But that wouldn’t have been the right way. That wouldn’t have been what Ethan wanted, Stacy said.
Jim and Stacy said Ethan was a light to everyone in his life. He had a way of loving everyone without question. Stacy, with tears in her eyes, scrolled through pictures of Ethan, Maizie and Hunter. She pointed out that Ethan was always in the middle, his arms wrapped tightly around his siblings. He always had a smile on his face and light in his eyes.
“He was one of a kind. He was so comfortable in his own skin. He wasn’t a kid who judged,” Stacy said. “He didn’t care your race, your religion, your sexual preference, if you’re skinny, fat, tall, short, or whatever. That kid did not care.”
They counted time after time Ethan recruited anybody and everybody to play on the basketball court with him. He didn’t care how he looked or who he played with. He just wanted everyone to get a chance to play, Stacy said.
Over the last year, Jim and Stacy said they have had people reach out and tell them they play basketball solely because Ethan asked them to join. He was intentional with everyone around him.
“He was like that up until the very end,” Jim said.
“I’m in awe of him and the way he touched lives,” Stacy said. “As his mother, if I can touch as many people like he did in his 20 years in literally my lifetime, I will be a better person.”
The Chapins want to celebrate Ethan in the best way they can on Nov. 13, even though, as Stacy put it, it’s a daunting day. On the one-year anniversary of Ethan’s passing, the Chapins and some of their closest friends will attend a password protected, fully extravagant, black-tie gala.
Jim and Stacy went back and forth over the pronunciation of the word gala, laughing at the extravagance of the whole event. Money will be raised at the event for the Ethan’s Smile foundation. They said this gala would have made Ethan laugh, made him smile at the outlandish and over-the-top get together. It is the perfect way to spend Nov. 13, Jim and Stacy said. It is the perfect way to stay afloat, to not sink.
“Ethan wasn’t a sinker,” Stacy said. “We won’t let our kids sink.”
Jim and Stacy have worked to bring light to a very dark tragedy. They have worked to stay afloat, to help the kids stay afloat, to help Vandals stay afloat and to help the nation stay afloat.
Because Ethan was not a sinker.
“It just goes back to Ethan. He was that kid,” Jim and Stacy said.
Joanna Hayes can be reached at [email protected]