WAUSAU - Charlcie Cox and husband Luis Pedraza often discuss death with their five children. It's a subject they know well.

Every day the close-knit family talks about Isaiah Powell, the 13-year-old family friend who died 19 months ago after being stabbed in the back by another boy on a Wausau street.

Isaiah was good friends with all of Charlcie and Luis' kids. Aqua Pedraza, 15, still sleeps with a Teddy bear that Isaiah gave her for Valentine's Day in 2013. Isaiah was too embarrassed to deliver the gift himself, Aqua said, so he stayed in the car while his mom handed it to her. Aqua ran out to the car to give him a hug, she remembered.

"I think if he was alive," Luis started, and Aqua finished: "Things would be really different."

"I don’t really hang out with a lot of people anymore," Aqua said. She and Isaiah dated on and off since 2011.

Charlcie and her family remember Isaiah as a funny boy who would dance in the hallways at school and cook with his friends. He and Aqua and her brother, Jose Pedraza, once made smoothies with snow and blueberries.

RELATED: Hundreds mourn at 13-year-old Isaiah Powell's funeral

RELATED: Protesters march for stabbing victim

Charlcie and Luis agreed to sit down with some of their kids and USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin to talk about Isaiah as they knew him and try to clear up what they believe are misconceptions held in the community. The family still feels Isaiah's absence, but he's often left out or mentioned only in passing in news reports and community conversations about his case. Instead, the boy who stabbed and killed Isaiah, Dylan Yang, remains a center of attention as his sentencing draws near and he faces up to 60 years in adult prison. Dylan was convicted in March at age 16, in adult court, of first-degree reckless homicide.

Dylan is Hmong, and Hmong people from all over the state and country have jumped to his defense, saying he should never have been tried as an adult and asking the judge to be lenient when sentencing Dylan on Sept. 6. Isaiah was Hispanic.

Supporters of Dylan organized a demonstration in late May with hundreds of people calling for anti-bullying efforts in the schools and fairness for people of all races in the justice system. Many at the march and on Facebook have said Dylan was bullied; some said he was bullied by Isaiah Powell. But that image of Isaiah is not the real Isaiah, his friends say. The Pedraza kids want people to know that Isaiah was a good person. And their family's experience of the day he died and the months of fallout has not yet been told.

Charlcie organized another march in June with about 40 of Isaiah's friends and family declaring with chants and signs that Isaiah was not a bully. They shouted: "Justice for Isaiah."

"I just want justice to be served, and I don’t want Isaiah’s name dragged through the mud," Charlcie said. "He’s not here to defend himself. We’re his voice. We’re the ones that can speak for him. He was a good kid. And I — we all — wish that he was still alive."

Getting the bad news

Isaiah's mother, Shannon Perez, talked to USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin at the march for Isaiah, echoing the theme that Isaiah was not a bully. She initially agreed to an interview for this story but stopped responding to scheduling requests in June. Shannon did speak with WSAW for a June 1 story and said her life was ruined the day Isaiah died.

He died at Aspirus Wausau Hospital on Feb. 27, 2015, after a physical fight instigated on Facebook. He and another boy sent messages back and forth with Dylan. The boys swore at each other, postured and called for a fight, according to evidence from the trial obtained by USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin.

They planned to fight at Marathon Park, but Dylan and his friends didn't show up. A group of boys, including Isaiah and Jose Pedraza, got a ride to Dylan's neighborhood and prepared for a fight.

Some of the boys retreated to the car when they saw a friend of Dylan's reaching for what they thought was a gun in his vest, Charlcie said. She wants people following the Dylan Yang case to know definitively that the fight did not happen at Dylan's house but outside in the street.

Isaiah had a BB gun and took some shots before another boy tackled him. Dylan ran into the house after seeing this scuffle and, thinking the BB gun was a real pistol, returned with a long kitchen knife and stabbed Isaiah twice.

RELATED: Things to know about the Dylan Yang trial

When Jose called to tell Charlcie about the stabbing, his voice and the background noises sounded strange, like he was calling from a big building, she said. "I knew something wasn’t right."

She and Luis had given Jose permission only to go to a friend's house and play a game.

Charlcie met up with the boys and other family members in the hospital waiting room. Staff members moved them to a conference room for updates from the chaplin, nurse and police. Her voice strained as she recounted these memories, which she said remain vivid and traumatic.

In the waiting room she asked Jose about the size of the knife and he gestured about 14 inches. "Inside me I felt butterflies, because I knew how thin and how wide Isaiah was," she said.

Isaiah's mother, Shannon, and some other family members left the room for what Charlcie expected was positive news on surgery for Isaiah.

“They came walking back and it was like the 'Wizard of Oz,' walking arm in arm, just sort of blank on their faces," Charlcie said. "And Shannon looked mad."

Isaiah's aunt smacked the door shut, Charlcie said. And Shannon told the boys then: "I hope you guys learned from this. This cost my son his life."

That's how the room of Isaiah's friends and their family learned he died. Charlcie remembered everyone screaming. Aqua cried so hard at the hospital she threw up.

They weren't allowed to see the body, for fear they would would become emotional and disturb evidence collection, Charlcie said. Not even Isaiah's mother could see him.

"I really pity Shannon, not being able to touch her son while he was still warm," Charlcie said, breaking down in tears.

A goofy boy

Sometimes Aqua doesn't want to cry about Isaiah when she feels the urge, but she tries to let her feelings out, she said. Jose tries not to cry or be overly emotional because he knows that would make Aqua cry, too.

Aqua thinks of Isaiah at odd times. She will catch a whiff of his characteristic smell when she doesn't expect to on the street or in her bedroom. It's a combination of Mexican food and Axe cologne. When Aqua eats ketchup she thinks of Isaiah, too, because he put ketchup on everything from macaroni to eggs.

Aqua last saw him through a bus window. Isaiah wanted her to walk with him from Horace Mann Middle School to the Boys & Girls Club of Wausau, but she was too cold to walk.

On the ride to the hospital, Isaiah asked Jose to tell Shannon and Aqua he loved them. It wasn't the first time Isaiah expressed his love to Aqua. Every time she thought of a story or memory about Isaiah during her interview, she interrupted herself or her family members to share it.

He liked to be tough and sometimes he was overprotective, she said. A boy put snow down her shirt at the Boys & Girls Club in 2014, and Isaiah retaliated against him with a lot more snow, Aqua said.

Charlcie and her kids said they don't know of Isaiah ever bullying people, though. They said he did occasionally get in trouble for goofing around. He was goofy as a little boy, when Charlcie first met him.

"He was just funny," Charlcie said. "Always making people laugh, always always. It didn't matter the situation. He'd find the humor in everything."

Even when Isaiah's goofing got him in trouble, that information wasn't allowed in Dylan Yang's trial. The defense couldn't reference "other acts, crimes or wrongs of the victim, as those acts, crimes or wrongs would not be relevant to this action," according to an August 2015 motion filed by Assistant District Attorney Michael Puerner, a motion that a judge granted before the trial. Some of Dylan's supporters have complained that the jury never heard crucial information about why Dylan feared Isaiah.

'Over time it will get easier'

Luis said he can sympathize with Dylan, because he's young and confined in jail and facing decades of prison time. Luis and Charlcie wanted a more severe punishment for the driver who drove the boys to fight with Dylan and his friends.

That driver, Nia Phillips, now 20, is on probation for contributing to the delinquency of a minor. Her sentence includes three years of probation, 300 hours of community service and counseling.

"She should be up there, too — not only Dylan, but her, too," Charlcie said.

"I’m not saying he’s completely innocent in his role," she said of Isaiah. "They were going to fight, obviously. But, matter of fact, it wasn’t even his fight. This fight was supposed to be between two other boys."

Dylan's sentencing was scheduled for July, but Judge LaMont Jacobson moved it to September.

Jose said he doesn't mind the delay because it gives him time to think.

"I just want it to be over with," Aqua said.

As for an actual punishment, Aqua is a little torn.

"How would you feel if it was Isaiah (in Dylan’s place)," Luis asked her. It's a question she'd already considered.

"I’d feel bad. I feel bad for Dylan now," Aqua replied. "But he took a life also, so he deserves it."

Charlcie sympathizes first with Shannon. She said if her child died as Isaiah did, she would want the maximum sentence for the one who held the knife, which is 60 years.

"I don’t know if there’s anything that we could do to make the pain go away," Charlcie said. "I just think that time, that over time it will get easier. But I don’t know how much time. I can’t say."

Nora G. Hertel: nora.hertel@gannettwisconsin.com or 715-845-0665; on Twitter @nghertel.