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Someone stole cross wife and child made Roadside memorial helped them with grief By JULIE SWENSEN Some drivers may not have noticed it as they whizzed past it on Highway 62, across from Pier One Imports. It was a cross, made of pieces of redwood 2-by-4s, displaying only the words "Dan Aimone." But to Eagle Point residents Winona and Tyra Aimone, Dan's wife and 7-year-old daughter, the cross was important. It helped them deal with their grief after Dan was killed in a motorcycle crash last summer. When they drove past the cross, they'd say "I love you." But when Winona drove by the spot on April 3, the cross was gone. "When I told her, she wanted me to call the cops. She started crying," Winona said. "It was like losing him all over again." Aimone, 41, was killed the night of Aug. 1, 1998, as he headed home on his motorcycle. He was driving north on Crater Lake Highway when he collided with a pickup truck driven by Virgil Perry, 86, of Medford, who had been driving the wrong way. A Jackson County grand jury decided not to indict Perry on a criminally negligent homicide charge. He was cited for careless driving. After Aimone's death, their lives turned upside down, Winona and Tyra made the cross. They routed, sanded and lacquered it, and spelled his name on it. At the base they poured concrete, and when the gray mixture was still soft, they pushed in the stems of silk flowers. Red roses, with gold flakes around the tips. It took them about three weeks to make the memorial, and they installed it in the grass at the side of the highway last October. In the past six months, they stopped often to pick up trash and pull weeds. For Tyra, who attends bereavement classes, "it was a way for her to open up and relax a bit, and to know it was okay to talk about your feelings," Winona said. While Winona isn't sure who took the memorial, she knows that road workers didn't. The Oregon Department of Transportation had given her the go-ahead to put it there, and when it came up missing, road crews were contacted. Winona is hoping that someone saw who took the cross between 2 p.m. Friday, April 2, and 1 p.m. Saturday, April 3. No questions will be asked if the person would just put it back, she said. The words flow from Winona when she describes Dan, who was the White City manager for Medford Fabrication. "Very loving, caring. He was a hard worker," she said. "He didn't turn his back on people. He was always there when anybody needed him. "It (the cross) meant a lot to my daughter and to myself. If it offended anybody, I'm sorry," she said. "But it was a way for us to deal with our loss, which meant a lot to us." Mail Tribune Copyright � The Mail Tribune 1999, Medford, Oregon USA