QUEEN CREEK, AZ (CBS5) -
One year ago two Valley brothers hopped into a canal and only one made it out alive.
On this painful anniversary, the boys' dad is hoping for change.
"I miss him snuggling. Sitting in my lap and just, just hanging out with dad," Cody Thomson said.
It's the kind of pain no parent should have to endure - a grief so life shattering you can't really pick up the pieces, so you reassemble them into something you can live with.
"It's just from that point forward things will never be the same," Thomson said.
Thomson wants to make sure we don't have to hear a story like his again, which is why he's sharing it with you.
"It was a remarkably cold day," Thomson said.
The calm canal you'll find today off Recker and Pecos Roads isn't what Thomson's young sons stumbled upon last April.
"They pretty much did everything together from day one," Thomson said.
When 6-year-old Brenan went bike riding with his 5-year-old brother, they both decided to check it out.
"With a sign that's eight by 10 that says no trespassing. Like a 6-year-old reads a sign, come on," Thomson said.
When he got there, he saw Brenan's little brother first.
"And I ran down there and immediately jumped in," Thomson said
Then he saw Brenan.
"I knew the second they pulled him out of the canal," Thomson said.
And he said he knew it was too late.
"It's taken me a year to even think about this," Thomson said.
He's spent the past year mourning his son's death.
"Canals are, we need them to live in the Valley, in the desert. We absolutely need them. But there's no reason why they can't be safer," Thomson said.
Now he wants action. He wants to know why a canal that every neighborhood kid has access to doesn't have the same regulations as a swimming pool.
"At least a swimming pool has steps and stuff, you have a fighting chance, you have something you can hang onto, maybe," Thomson said.
He's started the Brenan Thomson Memorial Fund to educate people and create programs for schools about canal safety. Thomson also hopes to make changes on a state level by working with legislators.
For more information you can head to his blog here.
Copyright 2012 KPHO (Meredith Corporation). All rights reserved.
Brenan Thomson (l), Cody Thomson
