Saturday's Internet Edition, May 17, 2008.
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| Darren Ireland loved his job as a sheriff’s deputy. |
Bonnie Lambert knows about that love, too. It’s the one that wraps a son’s arms around his mother, and hers around him.
Law enforcement officers across Davie County also know about that love - a love of a job that doesn’t pay much in money, that can be stressful beyond belief - and yet a job none of them would trade because they know they are making a positive difference in the world.
Darren Ray Ireland was the center of that love. And on Sept. 11, Darren Ireland, a hero to those close to him, died after a four-year battle with common variable immunodeficiency, a blood disorder that caused a myriad of problems.
Darren Ireland fought hard. His wife, Kristy, was always by his side.
While he was sick and in the hospital, he thanked her and apologized. “I was never going to leave his side,” she said. “I was always with him. It was always Kristy and Darren.
“He was a very loving person. Just out of the blue, countless times in the day, he would call, send me a text message, ‘I love you’. It didn’t matter if I cooked or picked it up, he always thanked me. I told him he didn’t have to thank me for supper, but he said I want to, I want you to know that I love you.”
Such stories could go on and on.
A lieutenant with the Davie County Sheriff’s Office, Ireland worked when others with the same pains would have stayed home. He refused to retire on disability when others would have given up long ago.
“He was a cop’s cop,” said Davie Sheriff Andy Stokes ... subscribe to the Davie County Enterprise Record, P.O. Box 99, Mocksville, N.C. 27028.