OAKLEAF - There is no linear path to grieving a loss. 

For a loss as significant as Yolanda Osborne-Kohn’s, she is learning how to day by day. 

On some days, Osborne-Kohn said she still finds herself cooking extra food for her son. Or, venturing into his room in the middle of the night hoping to find him. To hear his voice. To hear his infectious laugh. 

Until it strikes her that he’s not there. 

“How do you process not seeing the physical person,” Osborne-Kohn said. “Like, I’m aware that he’s not here. So, that's when the tears come.” 

Following a hit-and-run incident on July 26, Morgan-Drew Kohn’s life was tragically cut short seven days before his 30th birthday. In the early morning hours, while walking eastbound on Collins Road, Drew was struck by a pickup truck. He died at the scene. 

Osborne-Kohn said she accepted it was his time to go. In the years he had been on Earth, she said he had done everything he wanted to do–live his life to the fullest and inspire others. 

She remembers her son as a fighter. In 2017, just seven years before his untimely death, Drew fought tooth and nail to come back from a motorcycle accident that almost took his life. A traumatic brain injury, an impaled lung and a severed quad. When doctors said he would never be the same, Osborne-Kohn said she knew differently. 

Drew survived. And the last seven years of his life proved that. 

Although it wasn’t easy to let him go, Osborne-Kohn said she finds solace in the fact that she can share his powerful story with others — the life he never thought he’d have to live but the one he made the best of. 

Drew always dared to pursue the impossible. A star athlete, a musician, a family man and an aspiring minister, Osborne-Kohn said her son always knew what he wanted in life.

She recalls that in just the third grade, her son declared that he wanted 10 to 11 children.

“Really, I would say, faith, food, football and family, that really encompassed him pretty much,” Osborne-Kohn said. “And he didn’t have any fear of trying anything new.”

Born and raised in Jacksonville, Osborne-Kohn and her family eventually moved to Oakleaf. Attending Oakleaf High, Drew was a standout football star, leading the team to state-wide notoriety and winning many accolades. 

But   Osborne-Kohn said that he never let that change him. He never cared for the spotlight; he just cared about who he was impacting. 

Current Fleming Island interim head football coach Derek Chipoletti was his coach at the time. He said Drew brought so much light to the team.

“Drew had ... an infectious smile, an infectious attitude,” Chipoletti said. “He was a leader.” 

During his senior year, however, Drew tore his rotator cuff. Osborne-Kohn said her son was devastated. 

“I just remember he was down,” she said. 

But, it didn’t stop him. 

Drew recovered and graduated in 2013, becoming a walk-on at Bethune-Cookman University. He subsequently attended Abilene Christian University and Edward Waters University, receiving an Associate’s Degree. 

Drew’s life was just getting started until one day, it changed forever. 

Osborne-Kohn said the accident happened out of the blue. Drew had just gone out to play basketball with some of his friends. 

Riding his motorcycle, he was struck by a vehicle, doing three to four flips before landing in a puddle of his own blood. 

There were bikers nearby who ran towards the accident, thinking it was one of their own.

Osborne-Kohn said there was a husband and wife who said that, with all the debris, the accident resembled a bomb. 

The 911 calls had presumed him dead on the scene, but when the wife began talking to Drew in his ear, his shallow breaths could still be heard. 

By the time Osborne-Kohn and her family made it to the hospital, they were telling them that Drew wasn’t viable. 

“[They were] trying to get us to sign a DNR,” Osborne-Kohn said. “And wanting to harvest his organs. And I told them you’re not getting a toenail or an eyelash.” 

From there, she said it was an uphill battle. Since insurance didn’t view him as viable to live either, everything was “not medically necessary.”

Osborne-Kohn said she remembers sitting by Drew’s bedside and asking him to give her a sign. If he were ready to go, she wouldn’t make him stay. But he had to let her know if he wanted to stay. 

Although Drew was still unresponsive, Osborne-Kohn said she felt something. 

“In my spirit, I heard him say, 'It was real soft. I want to fight.' It was just a whisper,” she said. 

At that moment, she knew she would do everything in her power to help him do that. 

For 244 days, Drew remained in a coma. And Osborne-Kohn said eventually, the hospital decided to send him home. 

With Drew lying in his bedroom every day on a loop, Osborne-Kohn said they would play strings of mostly worship songs and the Psalms. 

“What we started noticing was we were getting more eye flutters,” she said. “We’d get all excited.” 

The day Drew woke up, Osborne-Kohn said she was right by his side. She got the chance to catch it all on video. 

Using all his energy to open his eyes to even just a tiny slit, she said that when Drew came to, the first thing he muttered was, "I’m OK. I love you."

With all the strength it took him to wake up, Osborne-Kohn said shortly after, he was out for another two weeks. But, it brought hope to his family that he was genuinely OK.

Drew was paralyzed from the neck down and had to learn how to do everything again essentially. Osborne-Kohn said that with an average Glasgow Coma Scale of the brain being 15, Drew was only a 3 when he woke up. 

Drew picked up the pieces and learned how to talk again, walk again and feed himself.

Osborne-Kohn said she and her son kept active by learning how to safely reincorporate his favorite activities, such as surfing, fishing and kayaking, back into his life. She said they would even cycle 18 to 20 miles twice a week. 

She said Drew's recovery was not easy but nothing short of a miracle. She is proud that Drew never gave up. 

“We all have something, but we shouldn’t quit,” Osborne-Kohn said. “And, Drew’s real-life testimony was he didn’t. Even though he was trapped in a body that didn’t work the way he would’ve liked.” 

Jodi Morgan is a speech/language pathologist and aphasia center manager with Brook’s Rehabilitation Center. She also witnessed Drew’s recovery up close and personal. 

Drew suffered from aphasia, which is a language disorder caused by a brain injury. It affects reading, writing, talking and the understanding of language. 

At the time, he was talking using a communication board, but Morgan said that when she first met him, she could see just how much of a light he was.

“He was just absolutely incredible and funny and kind, and he was super smart,” Morgan said. 

Since Morgan was also a clinical assistant professor at Jacksonville University. Osborn-Kohn and Drew began sharing his story with her graduate students and members at the aphasia center, hoping to inspire others. Morgan said everyone was in awe of him.

“I had a member here at the aphasia center who was very depressed and just super sad with life. And just nothing really inspired this person,” Morgan said. “And we had tried all sorts of things with him, and after Drew spoke, I could tell something had shifted in him.”

Osborne-Kohn said that Drew was about 93% recovered by the time the truck hit him. He had begun walking on his own, learned to drive a car, voted in his first election since the accident and was just about to venture into living alone. 

Osborne-Kohn said it’s still hard to believe he's gone, given how close he was to his family. 

“This is a bit of a shock for my family,” Osborne-Kohn said. “Because Drew wasn’t born disabled, he wasn't born handicapped, he didn’t have any challenges like that. So, it’s hard for them to get past. He scraped himself and clawed back from the motorcycle accident, [and] then now he’s not here.” 

In the wake of his death, the family does have a GoFundMe fundraiser in order to help with funeral expenses and medical expenses during the last seven years. 

Osborne-Kohn said the family wants justice for what happened. 

With such a sudden loss, Osborne-Kohn said she and her family are continuing to find their way. 

Drew was always a light in their lives and in the community. With Drew’s bright spirit still ever present, Osborne-Kohn said it continues to guide her on the not-so-straight and narrow path of her grieving. But she feels at peace. 

“I have moments where I miss him, but it’s almost like I feel selfish about that,” she said. “Because he was built for the season that he was here. And his time’s up.”