Teen’s drawing becomes priceless memory of life cut short

School revs up this week. Grandparents, take heed. When your “little students” hand you a drawing made in school, keep it.

These are precious pieces of art. Irreplaceable, like the children who created them.

Mike and Ann Davey of Spokane know this firsthand. Their grandson, Mitchell Raymond, drowned July 6, tragically, in Blue Lake, south of Coeur d’Alene.

He was 14, a student at All Saints School in south Spokane, an artist. He drew the cover for the school’s 2012-2013 yearbook.

In November, Mitchell showed his “Wampa” – Mike Davey – a drawing he’d made of all the places he hoped to visit in his life. He’d only been to one: the Space Needle in Seattle.

Davey loved it so much, he bought it from Mitchell for $20 saying: “It will be worth money someday.”

Davey framed the drawing and placed it in his “man cave.”

“He told Mitchell he could have it back after he left this world, not knowing Mitchell would leave first,” said Ann Davey.

At Mitchell’s standing-room only memorial service, those gathered were given his untitled drawing, a drawing as vibrant and filled with future dreams as the artist who created it.