Through tragedy, the Hilinski family came to South Carolina to start something new
The State
Mark and Kym Hilinski used to need a spreadsheet to make sense of their weekends.
As parents they had two football games to attend — one son, Ryan, in high school, the other, Tyler, in college. The games were most often within 24 hours of one another. And they played more than 1,100 miles apart.
“We used to put a little spreadsheet together of home, away, what time, if they’re on TV, if they’re not on TV, where the game was, where the Friday night game was,” Mark Hilinski said. “Because to get to Tyler’s game, if it was during the day, you only had one shot at it.”
Kym Hilinski remembers an 11:30 p.m. red-eye flight out of Los Angeles International Airport in Southern California where the family lived. They would fly to Seattle, sleep in the airport, catch a morning flight to Spokane and then drive nearly 80 miles to Washington State to see their middle son.
“It was all you could kind of do,” Mark Hilinski said, reminiscing about how tight it was for 1 p.m. kickoffs.
This year, the trip will only be a 30 or so minute drive down Interstate 26 to Columbia’s Williams-Brice Stadium. There is no more spreadsheet, but there should be. One son is gone, and the rest of the family couldn’t bear to be so far apart from each other.
The fallout from Tyler Hilinski’s suicide in January of 2018 has been vast. It’s impacted multiple communities, driven the Hilinskis to raise awareness for a root cause of the tragedy that upended their lives and it changed the geography of their family.
Kym and Mark Hilinski sit on the couch in their new house on Lake Murray. Pictures still sit by the baseboards, waiting to be hung. Kym has started in on the drywall for a renovation project, while Mark just came in from helping some workers put in a dock.
And in this new place, one a short drive or boat ride from their two remaining sons, they look outside on the water and end up considering what it would’ve been like for the one who isn’t there.
“You know what?” Mark Hilinski said. “The sad thing is, Tyler would’ve loved this place. That’s the crazy thing. Ryan does and Kelly, he’s super bouncing around and telling us, ‘I went to this place. I found this new place.’ But Tyler was sort of our water rat. He was the kid that would go into the ocean at 8 a.m. When you’re packing up your bags, ‘One more time. One more time. One more body surf. One more wave.’ ”
