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Wife starts touching Facebook tribute group to “free spirit” husband who dedicated his life to giving to others

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His memory will live on in the good deeds of others.

“He really took the time to go the extra mile for everybody; not just friends and family, complete strangers,” explains Brandon Hahn’s wife Jessica Hahn.

Hahn, a Tillsonburg resident, has started an open Facebook page, in memory of her husband, challenging its members to do one good deed each day — big or small.

Brandon Hahn, 30, died in a car crash on June 18, 2013, after his car hit a tree near Brantford Road and Windham Road 6, just east of Tillsonburg.

“They believed his heart stopped, they don’t really know why,” Hahn explained.

Hahn said she and Brandon, who had been together for 16 years, considered themselves “non-traditional type of people.”

“We didn’t go with the grain,” she said.

The free-spirited couple loved to live in the moment and devoted themselves to helping people out as much as they could.

The list of giving goes on and on.

Last year Brandon bought a birthday cake for a gas station attendant, who recently immigrated to Canada, who was celebrating his birthday alone.

Last Christmas Eve Brandon Hahn dressed as Santa and greeted customers at the same gas station that the couple had taken the birthday cake to.

The couple also traded two of his guitars for a violin to take to veteran at Parkwood Hospital so he would be able to play music again.

Last winter the couple spent a whole day collecting hundreds of pounds of rain-soaked clothing that was going to be thrown out from the local Salvation Army.

“We brought it home and we washed every article and sorted through it and then donated all of the clothing back to different organizations,” Hahn said.

Following the death of a local cab driver, Brandon Hahn started an online group in memory of the deceased man as a way to raise money for his family.

He also arranged to have a hall and caterer donated for the luncheon after his funeral.

His neighbours were also the recipients of his kindness.

Hahn, who worked long hours as a truck driver, was known to mow lawns and snow blow lane ways faithfully for his neighbours “just out of the kindness of his heart and to make their lives easier…”

At local restaurants Hahn’s husband often anonymously paid for other’s meals.

“He was one of the kindest people who I have ever met in my life and he made me a better person just by showing me that even as two people who aren't any one important — each day we could still make a small difference,” Hahn said. “We would go without so other people could have something.”

Out of her grieving, Hahn said, she started the Facebook event as way to make her first Christmas without him a little bit easier and “still feel like he’s part of the holiday season.”

“My hope of this event is to remind people that life is too short…,” she said. “We can all make life better not only for ourselves but for the rest of the world if we just take a minute each day to pay it forward and look for nothing back in return.”

Her open Facebook page is designed to have the online community “pay it forward” during the month of December.

The page is located at 31 days of Paying it Forward :-).

heather.rivers@sunmedia

 

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