Dad Gets a Call at Work Telling Him to Race Home. First He Sees the Plume of Smoke, Then His Young Son's Body

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A June 2 home fire in Louisville, Miss., claimed the lives of young brothers Kayden and Augustus McCleer as well as their grandfather Michael Coffey
'If you had to take your own heart out and put it in the ground and bury your own heart, that's probably a good way to describe it,' Cully McCleer, the boys' father, tells PEOPLE
Here, he opens up about that day and what came afterLast month, after the funerals for his two young sons and his fiancée's father, Cully McCleer picked up a shovel and helped fill their graves himself.
"We bury our own," says McCleer, a 35-year-old mechanic in Louisville, Miss. That didn't make it any easier.
Imagine, he says: 'If you had to take your own heart out and put it in the ground and bury your own heart, that's probably a good way to describe it."
McCleer's boys, 11-year-old Kayden and Augustus, 8, whom he shared with Victoria Coffey, were killed in a house fire in Louisville in early June along with their grandfather Michael Coffey, 65.
Weeks later, McCleer still can't find the words to describe the love his sons had for each other. More than just their common interest in video games and music, he says, Kayden and Augustus touched the lives of those around them.
'They squabbled just like any brothers,' he says. 'But in the end, there was always somebody's shoulder to sleep on in the car, always a hug to be had, always a picture to be taken.'
On the morning of June 2, McCleer was at work while Victoria, a 33-year-old photographer, and their 4-year-old daughter, Nova, were visiting Victoria's sister. Around 10 o'clock, McCleer received a phone call that Michael's home — where the family was living — was on fire and he needed to get there immediately.
'It didn't really become real until I got a little closer and could see the plume,' he recalls.
McCleer arrived at the scene before first responders. There, neighbors and bystanders were reportedly trying to get inside the home to help. He says he kicked the front door in and went looking for his sons and Victoria's dad.
After only "about 10 seconds, I came back out after feeling the couch and the chair. I couldn't see anything, couldn't breathe," he says. The firefighters wouldn't let him return.
As the fire raged hotter and hotter — and as McCleer began hollering into the house, hoping for anybody to answer — the emergency personnel pulled Kayden out of a bedroom window and began CPR. McCleer and his fiancée followed their son in an ambulance to the hospital.
McCleer says that officials later determined the blaze was an electrical fire that started in the attack at the back of the home.
'I did not finish watching the house burn,' he says. 'By the time I left, it was completely engulfed.'
Though Kayden began breathing again while hospitalized, he eventually died from smoke inhalation. His little brother and their grandfather were both pronounced dead at the scene.
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Now the family grieves. And remembers.
Kayden, who had autism, loved music and anatomy as well as video games.
'Even though he was 11 years old, he was as innocent as any newborn baby,' his dad says. 'He didn't know hate. He didn't know anything but love. He would've easily outshone a saint, and he was so special to us because of his condition. I was excited to see where his life was going to go after all the hardship in the very beginning.'
Augustus — who everyone called Gus — 'reminded me a lot of me when I was a little boy,' McCleer says. 'Loved to be outside, loved camping, loved fishing, loved animals.'
'He never really picked up on liking to work on things, but he did pick up his daddy's passion for drawing and music … Gus made a close connection with a lot of my close friends,' McCleer adds.
He calls Michael a tough guy on the outside but a teddy bear on the inside.
'He rode motorcycles and drove trucks his whole life,' McCleer says. 'He had just retired recently. He was a loving grandfather, man. He was there for them kids.'
'In the mornings,' McCleer says, 'I'd go to work — Mike would be up and we would leave the boys with him. Mike was fully capable of helping with the boys and the boys honestly helped him ... say, putting his shoes on or something.'
Having been displaced because of the fire, McCleer, Coffey and their daughter, Nova, are staying at Victoria's sister's home.
A GoFundMe was set up on their behalf that has so far raised more than $24,000.
'All the positive reinforcement from the community has definitely helped me get through this way more than I would've ever imagined,' McCleer says, adding, 'Just the sheer amount of people willing to give anything — I mean, babies' toys — that would help ease any kind of burden.'
'I can't express how grateful I am in words,' he says.
He says the family is coping the best way they can.
Their daughter, now their only child, understands what's happened, in a way.
'Bless her heart. I don't know if she knew what she was doing, but she threw dirt on her bubbas [at the burial],' McCleer says. 'She helped us. I felt like it would've been a crime not to let her be a part of that.'
If there is anything that the public could learn from this tragedy, he says, it's to take the time to give a hug or kiss to a loved one.
'I don't want that to happen to anybody else,' McCleer says. 'I don't want this pain for anybody, not even my worst enemy. Just make every moment count. Every moment.'
Read the original article on People