ARANSAS PASS, Texas (AP) - Calvin “Sonny” Cathey loved to ride his Harley-Davidson motorcycle.
The Corpus Christi Caller-Times (https://bit.ly/2nSsWL6 ) reports he and his wife Lorrie Cathey of Rockport would take out the Harley on the weekends for road trips and bike rallies.
“For 10 years, riding that bike was something we enjoyed doing together,” Lorrie Cathey said.
About two years ago, the Catheys attended a friend’s funeral service and that’s where they first spotted the Resthaven Funeral Home’s motorcycle hearse.
“He said to me, ’if anything ever happens to me I want you to get that for me’,” Lorrie Cathey said.
Calvin “Sonny” Cathey, 58, died in January after battling lung cancer.
And although it was a difficult time for her family, Lorrie Cathey was glad to know she was able to fulfill her husband’s wishes.
“I was very pleased to be able to do that for him,” she said. “It made his services so special and unique.”
Cathey’s family is one of the several families in the Coastal Bend who have been able to give their loved ones a final ride in the Resthaven Funeral Home’s motorcycle hearse - the only motorcycle hearse in the Coastal Bend.
“My wife and I both ride bikes and one night over dinner we were brainstorming about what we could offer our clients that would be different and special,” Resthaven Funeral Home in Sinton, owner Lee T. Hickel said. “We are able to provide some closure for the families and that final ride, that last ride.”
Hickel purchased the hearse about five years ago and found the Harley-Davidson trike bike to pull it in Mississippi.
Anyone in the Coastal Bend and South Texas - even other funeral homes - can use the motorcycle hearse, Hickel said.
Bike riders, veterans and even those who have never ridden a bike have used the motorcycle hearse through the last five years.
“They don’t have to be bike riders to use it,” Hickel said. “Our first customer to use the hearse never rode a motorcycle, but he always wanted to do it.”
Cynthia Murataya’s father took his first and final ride on the motorcycle hearse in 2013.
Jesus Murataya Sr. of Sinton had always loved motorcycles, she said.
“He loved motorcycles. I know he would’ve wanted to ride a motorcycle one day. But he got really sick and he never got the chance,” Cynthia Murataya said.
When she saw the motorcycle hearse drive down the road she noticed it got a lot of attention.
“I don’t know if people were looking at it because it was my dad or because it was a motorcycle but it was a good thing it got that much attention,” Murataya said. “It was a good thing because he never got a chance to ride a motorcycle so his first and last ride was a good one.”
Hickel and his wife and funeral home co-owner, Yvonne Cantu-Hickle, opened a new location in Aransas Pass in January.
The motorcycle hearse is available at the Sinton and Aransas Pass locations.
“We wanted to offer something for anyone who would want to go outside the traditional hearse and do something different,” Yvonne Cantu-Hickle said. “It’s only fitting to have something that these riders can go out with, their final ride. It speaks to who that person was.”
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Information from: Corpus Christi Caller-Times, https://www.caller.com
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