OGDEN -- People often get uncomfortable when Rod Lund talks about his oldest boy.
Lund likes to talk about the kind of man Dennis Lund grew up to be, the way he lived, even the way he died.But the death makes people uncomfortable.
"Most people don't want to hear your story. You try to tell them and they get that 'here we go again' look on their face," he says.
It's been a little more than six years since Dennis "Dee" Lund was killed. His death drew nationwide attention with mourners from all over the country coming to Utah to pay their respects.
Lund was an officer killed in the line of duty, dying in one of the most dramatic police episodes in recent Utah history.
What began as a gas skip perpetuated by two young men escalated into a high-speed pursuit and a shootout with Highway Patrol troopers in southern Utah. Both young men, Jason Scott Pearson and George Kennedy, were convicted in Lund's death.
Last week, in a spot four miles west of where Lund was shot and killed, the Utah Highway Patrol dedicated a monument erected in his memory.
Motorists traveling south on I-70 may notice it. At milepost 145, at the westbound view area about 15 miles west of Green River, there is a white cross memorializing the trooper's death.
A year after Lund was killed, his family flew to Washington, D.C., where they participated in a law enforcement memorial honoring officers killed in the line of duty that year.
The Lunds said it helped to meet other families who had suffered the same kind of loss.
"It was very nice. They treat you like a king," Rod Lund said. "I was in a room with 17 other fathers who had lost sons. It was a letting- out session, a chance to have a good cry."
When Lund was killed, he was trying to raise his son and daughter and care for his wife, Brenda, who worked as a member of the ambulance crew that was initially sent to give him aid.
The ambulance was intercepted before she unknowingly stumbled upon her husband's shooting.
The widow has since moved to South Weber. His daughter Tina will turn 19 in a month, and son Jared is 14.
The last six years have helped ease Rod and Nancy Lund's pain over the death of their son, but life has never been the same.
"It will never go away completely," Nancy Lund said. "But time does heal some of the pain."
Family events are hard. It's like one piece of a puzzle is permanently missing, and the picture will never be complete.
"You never forget. You go over it and over it in your mind. At party functions, something's missing. You know he should be there, and he's not," he said. "We miss him, he was our first born and something special."
The worst time, of course, was in the year after their son's death. Their other son, Clark, also worked as a Utah Highway Patrol trooper.
It was a job that suddenly became ominous for the entire family.
"We got a scanner and listened to it every night," Nancy Lund said. "We could hardly wait until he signed off and we knew he was safe."
Rod Lund said his other son had two close brushes with death in that first year after Dee was shot.
Both involved motorists who sideswiped the trooper's car while it was on the side of the road.
Both times, Rod Lund said, his son had a premonition to get back in the car.
"We worried a long time before we heard he was OK," she said. "A phone call in the middle of the night would just terrify us."
The Lunds say the sudden death of their son in the line of duty eventually propelled their other son into another assignment for the Department of Public Safety. It was a job switch that relieved everyone in the family.
Both boys grew up wanting to be police officers, and it was a career choice that made their parents proud.
Nancy Lund said they knew the job had inherent risks, but those risks were never dwelled on by the family until Dee was killed.
"It's not something we thought about," she said.
In fact, many felt Dee Lund was too "nice" to be in a job that often requires dealing with people who can be mean.
"He liked to help people," she said. "To him, being an officer was not about arresting people, it was about helping people."
Rod Lund agreed, his eyes filling up with tears.
"He would not have hurt those kids for nothing," he said. "He would have taken them home and fed them some dinner, put them to bed and called their parents, but they wouldn't let him."