Why This Family Decided to Pack Their Couch With Explosives and Blow It Up Might Make You Cry — 'An Important Step in the Grief\

Rachel Hallmark's courageous son, wise beyond his years, has been gone for just over a year now, but a painful reminder of his four-year battle with cancer stared her in the face daily. The Texas family took care of that reminder recently in a most epic fashion.

The couch where Ethan Hallmark sat and laid during treatment for stage 4 neuroblastoma, which he was diagnosed with at age 9, the couch where he died at 13 years old on Sept. 26, 2014, was blown up Saturday.

In a family video, Rachel sat on that couch, saying it was very difficult for her to even sit on it.

Rachel Hallmark sits on the couch, touching the spot where her son Ethan Hallmark died at 13 years old from cancer. (Image source: YouTube)

"In the past year, I haven't sat in this spot. As a matter of fact, this is probably one the first times I've touched this spot, because this is where Ethan died," she said, putting her hand on an end cushion of the couch. "This is where he took his last breath. He was sitting upright and his eyes closed and he started breathing heavily and moments later he died.

"Our hearts have been broken ever since," the mother said, going to on explain that she's wanted to get rid of the couch but had not been able to.

TheBlaze first heard of Ethan Hallmark last year, a month after his death, when he was featured in a video sharing his poignant views on faith.

“You can’t watch it without putting yourself in the shoes of him or his parents, family members or friends and not be part of the narrative that’s taking place,” John Humphrey, director of communications for I Am Second, told TheBlaze at the time. “God gave him that ability to humbly go ahead and accept that role and live a life in front of everybody that was inspiring."

Image source: YouTube

A year after his death, Rachael told WFAA-TV she thinks about Ethan almost every second of every day. And the couch where he died continued to be one of the most painful sticking points.

"I struggled with looking at it every single day. It killed me," Rachel told the news station. "Most people who came in my house, they didn't know where he died. And when they would sit in the spot he died on, it felt like my heart was being ripped out over and over."

So on Saturday, the anniversary of Ethan's death, the Hallmarks and some family friends took this couch to a field, outfitted it with seven pounds of explosives and watched it go up in smithereens.

Image source: YouTube

"It is a lot crazy," Rachel admitted in the video ahead of blowing up the couch. "But Ethan would love it."

Before exploding the couch though, his friends stood behind it and recalled their favorite things about him. His bravery. His friendship. His overall personality.

So with the right side of the couch in a reclined position, the same position that Ethan sat in at the moment of his death, his friends and siblings with several guns pointed, shot at the couch to detonate the explosives.

Image source: YouTube

Image source: YouTube

Watch the family's video:

Rachel told WFAA the moment was therapeutic and "an important step in the grief."

I Am Second caught up with the Hallmark family recently, talking about dealing with the pain and grief and hanging on to the lessons from the teen who coined the quote "I’ve come to learn even the smallest amount of light can overcome the darkest darkness."

Watch Ethan in this I Am Second video: