MURPHY — The community turned out in force Saturday to celebrate Ray Millette’s life. Hidden Valley High School’s athletic field was an appropriate venue for the former athlete.

“His spirit is woven through this place,” said friend Justin Zesiger, who was with Millette when he crashed his off-road motorcycle and died July 28 in the mountains west of Grants Pass.

Several hundred people attended an hour-long celebration of life for the 49-year-old family nurse practitioner who many called doctor.

“This is a fraction of the lives Ray touched,” Zesiger said.

Millette ran Millette Family Medicine in Grants Pass, where his wife, Carolyn, is administrator. He was a friend and counselor to his patients. He dispensed hugs along with advice.

Zesiger and officiant Dan Vidlak and Millette’s son, Tyler, reminisced, laughed and stifled tears.

“I wish Ray was here to help me through this loss,” Zesiger said.

Millette’s love of motorcycle riding, Zesiger said, was a way for him to relieve stress, and a way to be free, even after Ray’s father, Michael, was killed in a motorcycle crash in June east of White City.

Up on a mountain, Zesiger said, they would stop and Ray would exclaim, “We live here!”

But it cost him that life, too. Tyler said the call he got from his mother was the worst of his life. Since then, however, Tyler said he has heard and read much about the man. Many comments were posted online.

Tyler said the message he got from all that was that his father “was one helluva guy.”

“The reminiscing is such a huge testament to the man.”

Millette’s death was unfair not only to his family, Tyler said, but also “to his patients, who he cared about so deeply.”

He was bright and boisterous and didn’t know the meaning of the word moderation, Tyler said. He was a University of Oregon Ducks fan so deeply that he had the school logo tattooed to his body.

Yellow and green balloons — Oregon’s colors — adorned the setting. Down front were family pictures, including one from a “Sadie Hawkins” dance in high school, when Ray was a sophomore and Carolyn was a junior.

“My dad loved my mom so much,” Tyler added. They were best friends for 35 years.

Tyler said there’s no right or wrong way to grieve — some people laugh, some cry and some do both — but that, for him, hearing stories about his father was good medicine.

Vidlak thanked the crowd on behalf of the family.

“Isn’t community a wonderful thing?” he asked.

“We’re grieving,” Vidlak continued. “It hurts. Grief is the cost of love. The more we love, the more we’re going to grieve.

“If Ray was here, one of the things I know he would say is, ‘I love you guys.’”

After the speakers were done, family and friends released the balloons into the evening sky, as a symbol of letting go.

“Ray, we love you,” Vidlak said. “And until we see you again, Goodbye.”