He gave courage a face. When Lars Alecksen of Eatonton talked about his daughter, a soldier slain by a roadside bomb in Afghanistan, he always managed a smile, always shared warm memories of Army Spc. Erica Alecksen.
He’ll smile no more. Alecksen, 51, died Tuesday night at his Putnam County home of a suspected heart attack.
“I really think it was a broken heart,” said his wife, Doria Alecksen.
Now, Doria Alecksen is fielding phone calls, making funeral arrangements, keeping her son close. For Doria, 50, these activities are all too familiar. Erica, 21, was killed July 9 by an improvised explosive device, and was buried July 18 in Eatonton. The whole town turned out to say goodbye.
Now, she's pondering another service. "It's all a shock, so soon after Erica's death," said Doria, who observed her 24th wedding anniversary Aug. 20.
Lars had been working in the yard Tuesday afternoon, family members said, when he decided to take a bath. He called his son, Charles, to the bath: His chest hurt, the elder Alecksen told his son, and his arms tingled.
His son, 16, dialed 911 and administered CPR as paramedics hurried to the home. Doria, working in town, got a call to hustle, too.
“By the time I got home,” she said, “it was too late.”
“This was totally out of the blue,” said Maurine Huggins, Lars Alecksen’s mother-in-law. Twenty-four years ago, she stood in her front yard and smiled as her daughter, Doria, said her vows with a man she met in Wisconsin and convinced to move south. “Can you believe this?”
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