Daran Wiley: Protector With a Big Heart

Daran Wiley is remembered as a protector with a big heart by his mother, Rashawn McKenzie.

“He wasn’t just my protector; he protected his siblings,” McKenzie said. “I learned that it didn’t just stop there, that he genuinely cared about everyone around him. He wanted everybody to be treated equally and fairly, and he stood up for others.”

Wiley was struck and killed by a train over the summer and was just 14 at the time of his death, leaving a hole in the worlds of people around him.

Daran Wiley was the third child of four but took on the eldest role in his family as both of his older siblings were differently abled. He helped his mother take care of his older siblings with feeding, changing, and moving them. His help didn’t stop there; he also looked out for his older sister at school to make sure she was doing okay.

Wiley was very passionate about school and worked hard so that he could fulfill his dream of going to Howard University to study law. Although that wasn’t always his plan as McKenzie recalls the first thing he ever wanted to be was an astrophysicist.

“He came home and he was like, ‘Mom, I want to be an astrophysicist and if you don’t know what it means, it’s okay, I can tell you,’’’ McKenzie said. He dressed as an astrophysicist to a school event that year.

McKenzie recalls during COVID when they were doing school from home, it wasn’t stimulating enough for Daran so she had to order science kits for him to do. When they arrived, he had to do them right away. He was fascinated by one that came where you could make electricity using a potato and did it repeatedly; however, he didn’t eat potatoes for a while after learning of this.

McKenzie said she knew that Daran had a big heart but she didn’t realize how much he affected the people around him until his funeral when so many people came that she was not expecting. She said a mother told her at the funeral that Daran had stopped her daughter from being bullied.

After his death, McKenzie wanted to see a different side of him and who he was around his friends. A classmate shared a video of Daran holding a phone and walking up to people telling them to smile and they all did.

“I wanted to see the other version of my son because I’m never going to get to see the continuous version of him,” McKenzie said.

She says learning about the lives he touched helps her deal with his death.

“I don’t understand why his time came so early, but I tell myself that maybe because he touched so many people here, and he impacted so many lives here, that, you know, God looked at him and said, ‘I need him to touch the lives of more in other places,”’ McKenzie said.