Neighbors and community members gathered on the 4100 block of Madison Avenue July 13 to remember Devin Ekstam, a 25-year-old Brookfield resident who died on May 10 from an accidental gun wound.
Bonnie Stinton, Ekstam’s grandmother who raised him, said she would miss his “over-the-top joy” the most. Due to a diagnosis of bipolar disorder, both his emotional lows and highs were exaggerated, she said.
“When he was up, he was just so joyful. He was so into fun,” Stinton told the Landmark. “I believe that if you’re not having fun every day, go back to bed.”
The memorial took place over the course of the afternoon in the front and back yards of resident Geri Pasieka. Stinton and Ekstam lived next door to Pasieka for about 11 years in Ekstam’s childhood before they moved elsewhere in Brookfield, Stinton said.
Ekstam was a talented athlete who played many sports, his favorite being soccer, which he played for four years during his time as a student at Lyons Township High School before attending Parkland College in Champaign-Urbana.
Stinton said her grandson’s love of soccer started at a young age and guided the family through multiple trips to England, the first when Ekstam was just 6 or 7.
“He was a soccer nut. He went to Arsenal Stadium on a tour. His team was the Tottenham Hotspurs, so he got to go to a Tottenham game. … We went to lots of soccer,” she said. “The second time I took him — I think he was maybe 11 or 12 — they upgraded us to first class for no reason. We don’t even know what the reason was, and we went and sat, and he was in heaven. He said, ‘People really go like this all the time?’”
Ekstam’s friends Jasel Hernandez and Lauren Cascone said they were friends with him for about seven years after he befriended Hernandez’s younger brother.
“Devin and my brother became best friends. They would hang out every single day, talk all day, every day, and then we all became a little group,” Hernandez said. “Lauren was actually my brother’s friend, but now she’s my friend.”
They both said they would miss Ekstam’s protective nature.
“Anybody that would mess with me, he was on it. He would never let anybody disrespect me. He would never let anybody disrespect any of his friends, any of them,” Hernandez said. “He’s fought so many people for my brother, for me, for everybody. He was never afraid, ever.”
“There was one time my mom had gotten pushed by one of our tenants,” Cascone said. “[Ekstam] found the tenant outside somewhere. They were in their car, and they were about to run him over or something, and he was screaming, ‘Hey, you pushed my friend’s mom!’ He got on them pretty good.”
Stinton said Ekstam inherited addictive tendencies from his parents and struggled with substance abuse throughout his life, which affected his relationships and friendships.
“Honestly, my favorite memory is him telling me, the day before he passed, that he was sober,” Hernandez said. “We had to distance ourselves from him because he was getting way too out of control. … We were hoping that he would get better, and then he called us saying that he was sober, and it made me so happy. It really made me so happy. I told everybody.”
Not even 12 hours later, Hernandez learned through mutual friends that Ekstam had died and had to break the news to her brother.
“It was a very hard day,” she said. “Me and Lauren were crying all day.”
“Every time you hung out with him, it was always something you remember. One time, I was at Jasel’s house, and there was some random cat that was strolling around. He took the cat, and we played with it in the apartment,” Cascone added. “I took it to Devin’s house. He took care of the cat for a day, and then we saw all these signs for a missing cat, and I was like, ‘Dev, we got to get this cat back.’”
Stinton said the gathering of people who knew Ekstam, from old neighbors to close friends and relatives, was a gift after his unexpected death.
“It lets me watch him grow up again, because each of them has such great stories about what he did wrong or right in their yard, but they always thought he was the most polite kid that they knew, even though he was wild,” she said.
Hernandez and Cascone agreed it was heartwarming to see people come together to remember Ekstam.
“Devin was a great friend, he really was,” Hernandez said. “He cared about all of his friends. I feel like he cared more about his friends than himself.”
