IOWA — A day that ended with something unforgettable … began the same way. A grown man in a Darth Vader costume walking the aisles of the tailgate lots for seemingly no reason at all.

“As of 9 o’clock that morning,” said the man, “the only plan we had was ‘wouldn’t it be funny if Darth Vader was standing there with the black Iowa State flag when the team bus goes by?”

But it was the other fans who really ate it up — countless selfies.

His wife told him “don’t stop.”

“I was like ‘where do I go?’” he said, “and she says ‘just go walk around.’ And for two hours, I just walked around.”

By the time he was done, the man had gone viral. He was the talk of the tailgate — if not for the costume, for the story that was behind it.

“Every time I put the costume on,” he said, “in some way, it’s just sort of for me as a personal way to remember Carson. It’s almost like something fun that we do together.”

The man is Troy DeJoode of Nevada, and maybe that rings a bell.

“I was driving home from work,” DeJoode remembered, “and I got a phone call and the woman said ‘this is the house nurse from Mercy — are you driving?’ I said yes and she said ‘I need you to pull over.’”

We remembered the scene in Ankeny in 2010. A speeding truck had run a stop sign and smashed into a minivan.

“I knew it was bad, I didn’t know how bad,” he said.

Inside the minivan was Troy’s family. Two of his three children — five year-old Carson and five-month-old Claire, were killed. Three-year-old Chase somehow survived.

“When he finally asked ‘Where’s Carson? Where’s Sissy?’ I just told him,” DeJoode said.

WHO 13 covered the heartbreaking trial, where the driver of the truck was sent home. And the family’s road to recovery as they campaigned on behalf of the Iowa Organ Donor Network.

But then life settled down, at least until this month, when the memories of Carson stirred with the autumn leaves.

“He loved Halloween,” Troy said.

It was one of Carson’s things — along with Star Wars and Iowa State football.

The post gave Troy the chance to explain.

“My wife was like ‘people really need to know why this is — why you do this,’” he said. “And that’s when I wrote the Twitter thread.”

His words gave the post a second life. Readers responded with stories of their own.

“And that’s kind of when I kind of realized this was really even more special,” Troy smiled.

It was a story Troy DeJoode had told too many times, but somehow, one we needed to hear again: to be reminded — to capture random moments for whatever reason, to celebrate the life we have, and those we’ve left behind.

Latest Iowa News: