By Brian Zanzonico
Her three daughters were doing last-minute preparations in the kitchen, then went outside to help their father in the yard. As they walked out the front door, McArthur smiled faintly. "There's one missing," she said in her thick Jamaican accent.
The one missing, the reason why McArthur and her husband, Richard, sent out 100 invitations to a celebration in their small Chelsea Street home, was their son, Kevin, who was killed in a car accident last year, days before his graduation from Floral Park Memorial High School. The McArthurs wanted to celebrate Kevin's short life with the people who touched his life, and whose lives he touched: childhood friends from the Flatbush, Brooklyn, neighborhood where he was born, teachers and friends from high school.
The June 24 celebration was a year in the making, since Kevin's parents never had the chance to host a graduation party for him last year. Just after midnight on June 14, 2006, 19-year-old Max-Lesly Auguste, a freshman at Rutgers University, was driving with McArthur and two other friends back to Elmont from a popular pool hall in New Hyde Park. As he approached a curve right before Clarence Street, Auguste lost control of his 1998 Toyota Avalon and skidded into a tree. He was killed, along with McArthur and cousins Michael Richardson, 20, and Nyana Adingupu, 16. Another passenger, Aaron Richardson-Hourie, 16, then a sophomore at Floral Park, sustained minor injuries.
It has been a long, painful year for the McArthurs. Upon hearing the news of his son's death, Richard, who has a heart condition, suffered a minor heart attack. Pauline said that not a day passes in which she doesn't sob over the loss of her son, whom her daughters said had a special bond with their mother.
Kevin, who was given the nickname Eggy by elementary school classmates for his distinctively shaped head, was a severe asthmatic, and spent much of his youth under hospital care. The condition lessened as he grew older, but his mother remained protective of him. Asthma forced him to spend most of his time, especially during the summer, indoors. That's where he honed his skill in video games - he once competed in a gaming tournament - and nurtured his love for computers.
When he reached high school and began going out at night with friends, his mother imposed a curfew of 11 p.m. On nights when it was getting late and Kevin knew he was going to violate the curfew, Kevin would call one of his sisters - Stacey-Ann, now 25, Antoinette, 16, or Latyese, 12 - to convey the information to his mother. That's what he did shortly before the accident that killed him.
The walls of Kevin's old room remained blue until a few weeks ago, when Latyese moved in and chose a melon color and floral border. Now Latyese, who turned 11 the day her brother was killed, sleeps in the same room he did for seven years. "It makes me feel close to him, like it used to be," she said.
On the first night Latyese spent in Kevin's room, her mother put his pillow in the bed with her, saying, "That side is for Kevin."
The girls have kept Kevin's myspace.com Web page open, which Stacey-Ann said is good therapy for them and his friends. Kevin's friends often leave messages for him as if he'll respond, she said.
"It's never, 'Why did this have to happen?'" Stacey-Ann said. "It's more like, 'You're in a better place.' Or 'I had a bad day and wanted to do this-and-that but thought about what Kevin would do.' It's like he's guiding them. It's comforting."
The first people to arrive at the party were Kevin's elementary school friends. As they entered the kitchen, they each greeted his mother with a kiss on the cheek. She responded each time with an embrace, a tight hug she'll never again be able to give her only son.
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