By Megan Kelley

Review Writer

Donned in Detroit Lions gear and Orion Strong shirts, between 200-300 of members of the Lake Orion community came together at Children’s Park on Saturday to celebrate the life of friend, father, husband, son and business owner Anthony Reighard, who passed away just a week before due to a heart attack. He was just 43-years-old.

He is survived by his wife, Christina, daughter Hailey, and mother and father, Donna and Rob Reighard.

“How do you summarize a life in a few words? You can’t, especially when we’re talking about Anthony,” said Matt Pfeiffer, a close friend of Reighard. “When I got the call from Chris (Christina Reighard, Anthony’s wife) about Anthony’s passing the other morning, I couldn’t believe it…I didn’t think he could be gone, but that’s kind of the thing about loss – we rarely see it coming so you can’t be prepared for it.”

The memorial event consisted of several members of the community taking a moment to talk about Reighard and the impact he had on them and the community as a whole. The crowd of mourners were surprised with an airplane flyover, one of which was piloted by Reighard’s flight instructor, to the song “God Bless the U.S.A.” by Lee Greenwood.

“It’s a sad time. We all know that we all feel that; but we have to remember, that if you knew Anthony, Anthony wouldn’t want us here crying. He wouldn’t want us here being all down. He would want us here celebrating and lifting up his family and that’s what today is all about,” said Pfeiffer.

One of the key messages Pfeiffer spoke toward was appreciating loved ones while they are with us.

“I took Anthony for granted,” Pfeiffer confessed as tears filled in the eyes of the hundreds of mourners. “Anthony was always there for me and I know that a lot of you out here can say the same thing. That man was there for everybody…We can’t tell Anthony now what we felt about him, and we hope that he knew, but we can take this as a lesson going forward: that we have that opportunity now for the people in our lives and we shouldn’t squander that opportunity.”

While several people took the podium to speak about Reighard and his influence, most of the sentiments can be summarized by a statement made by Lee Smith, who said: “Knowing Anthony Reighard made me a better man.”