Over the last couple hours many thoughts have come to my mind, things that you couldn’t imagine. I’m sitting here this morning remembering Jason’s eighth grade summer. He was getting ready to play a fall sport. I was older than him, I played soccer. He could not kick the ball right. He was towing the ball so he went out and played football instead. When my mother was in town this summer, the last thing we did, it was crazy, on the side of my house, me, Jason, my daughter Kara, and his son Dylan, we were kicking the ball around, thinking there is a metaphor out there.

Sunday,..Sunday was a great day, Anyone that has ever tailgated with us knows that Sunday was the calm before the storm. Everyone was there. My mother was in Florida. Sunday was my mother’s birthday. My dad said to Jason, “It’s your mothers birthday, give her a call”. We were tailgating, in the car, whatever was going on, Jason was wishing my mom a happy birthday, having a conversation with her. Not me, I told her I would talk to her later, I knew there would be a later. I think Jason was starting to see some closure.

Monday, Jason went to my dad’s house for dinner. It could have been the Last Supper. Monday night I got home from work. I don’t always call Jason but I called him that night. I looked at my wife and told her that I had to go over there. There was something wrong in his voice. I went over there. I knew something was wrong but I have never seen him so peaceful. I talked to him but I was not worried. I knew he had finally seen something and was going to make a decision on his own. The worst thing anyone out here could do is to be scared of me, don’t be embarrassed. I am proud of my brother, my brother did everything he could do, he did it the best way he could, he might have done it his way, and the only way, but he did it his way. He had a lot of obstacles in life. Obstacles he had and the ones he could overcome, he overcame them with a vengeance. Some of them he just couldn’t battle.

My brother, my little brother. You guys might say how could I call him my little brother. He was bigger than I was. He was my little brother, he was my baby, he was Uncle Jason, he was daddy, he was son, he was a lot of things to many people. We are here today because of a life cut short. A life cut way too short. The only way I can go on is that I know Jason is safer, happier, and healthier and for the first time, he is free of grief. Jason was very sick. Maybe not physically, but emotionally. As he told me Monday night. “You don’t know what goes on inside my head.” I didn’t know what was going on inside his head. nobody knew what was going on inside his head. But it was tough, and he fought, he did not have any fight left. He fought as hard as he could fight. Life has many battles. Some people handle situations different ways. Jason, unfortunately, was dealt a very difficult deck. He would always get a 13 or 14. He could never get an ace. He could never get blackjack. He died on October 22 which is one after 21. He broke the deck.

Many of you will be familiar with the stories I will share and the tales I will tell. If you don’t then maybe you can learn a little more about him as I speak.

I loved my brother very much. We had a strange relationship though. We may have yelled, may have argued, but he was my brother, he was Jason. I learned to accept him. We kept telling Jason…do this…do that…..We were being selfish. We wanted Jason to do things for us; Jason wanted to do things for himself.

Jason was his own person. He may have yelled, he may have acted boisterously, but he wouldn’t, he couldn’t hurt a soul except himself. Everything my brother did, he did his way. It may have been a rebel way; it may have been an unconventional way. It was his way. If you can’t live your way, you can’t live.

Jason got a dog. He got a pit bull. He got a car, so he got a jeep, raised it 10 feet in the air and the warranty was gone the next day. He got a car stereo,; you could hear it a mile away from the corner with the stereo blasting. He bought a motorcycle, and he got the fastest one there was. That was my brother. He had to do it his way.

Sports can heal a lot of things. There was nothing greater that I enjoyed. I lived vicariously through him on the wrestling mat. When he could beat someone, when it was man Vs man, when Jason came out on top. There was no greater happiness that I have seen, nothing, and Jason came out on top many time. In wrestling, he did not do it the conventional way. Many of you guys here, you wrestlers. Jason tried to master the lateral drop. It is like a basketball player trying to master a full court shot. It is just something you don’t do. With his skills his experience, you don’t do that. Jason wanted to be flamboyant. That was his move. The lateral drop. His opponent had no idea what hit him. I can remember one instance, vividly in my mind, Owings Mills, wrestled Dunbar on a Wednesday night. At Dunbar, if any of you know where Dunbar is, I went down there it was me and Lem Satterfield sitting in the stands. Lem writes for the Sun Paper. I was the only Owings Mills fan there; everyone else was too scared to go down there. I said to Jason, “Who do you have tonight”. He said, I have Martious Harding. He is tough. He is big, plays in the summer and he is the only reason we are wrestling Dunbar. Martious Harding needed some exposure. Jason wrestled 160 pounds. Martious Harding looked like he was 185. He was thick.. He was their stud. If you think Dunbar had a stud in wrestling, Dunbar is a basketball school. They had one guy that was supposed to win the match that night. He was in Jason’s weight class. The match was close. I was talking trash to Lem, I said, “I think my brother can take him, I think he can take him.” BOOM. Hit him with the lateral jump and stuck him. I had to walk out of Dunbar, by myself, after he had just embarrassed their stud and put him on his back. That was my brother, he did it his way, the only way he knew how to do it.

People say we looked alike. But actually it was only our hair. He was tall and thin and I’m not tall and thin.

I remember when he would visit me in college. He had to visit me the first week in college. He had to put things together; I still can’t put anything together. As tough as he had it, as tough as he had trouble paying attention to things, if he knew I couldn’t do something, he would come up every year and put the entertainment center together.

I remember giving him my ID. What was the doorman or the clerk at the liquor store going to say, good shot, guy with red hair, can’t say it’s not you. Half the time he would say, Your brother just came in with your license. It did not become a problem until he started renting movies from Blockbuster and wasn’t returning them on time.

Who else do you know that would try and have a conversation with Dennis Rodman in Las Vegas. My brother. Dennis Rodman was probably impressed with the white fur shirt that Jason had on. There are some guys that might have gone to the fight with us, Lenox Lewis vs Rockman. We were walking down a hallway and some guys were looking at Jason and said, is he weird with that shirt. He looked at them, he knew he was not weird, he was just himself, he did it his way, it was the only way he could do it.

Jason was always the life of the party. You might not have been able to understand him, but you could always hear him. Jason has some really, really good friends. He had Evan, he had Michelle, he had Paul, he had Kenny, he had Steve and he had many others that I may not have mentioned. You guys were there for him, like parents should be there for a friend. You guys knew him; you knew what was up. Whether it was sitting in a corner sulking or acting out, Jason was Jason; he did it his way.

I worked with my brother for five years, every day. I saw him Monday through Friday, every day. We argued, we fought, we said things, but shrugged it off. We were brothers, it was business, and it was Jason being Jason. I knew how he was, I loved him and I moved past whatever argument we got in, whatever happened. I moved past.. It was Jason being Jason, Jason living his way, his way.

My father, Jason, my friend Keith and me had season tickets to the Ravens games. We tailgated before every game. There is a guy here from St. Mary’s county that we formed a bond with. He came up here. I called him the other night and told him what happened. We saw him maybe 10 Sundays a year, but we had that bond. Jason kept in touch with him. Jason had his number in his cell phone. That’s how I got his number, he’s here today. It means so much to me. It is unbelievable.

Sports can rid you of a lot of pain. No matter how late he stayed out, whose house he slept at, what he did the night before, he knew he had to be at my house by 8 am and his job was to get the beer. He was there. No matter what kind of hangover he had, what he was dealing with, he was at my house and we were at that Stadium with the grill going by 9 am sharp.

Jason got to see his team win the Super Bowl. Not many people get to see that. He did that to his fullest. Just this Sunday, whoever was there with us, it was probably our best tailgate of the year. The Ravens won. Again they took it down to the wire, but we won. It is so ironic that we play the Steelers this weekend. If you guys can remember when the Ravens played the Steelers the last time at Memorial Stadium. They weren’t that good, it pouring rain, it was cold, Keith didn’t go, my dad didn’t go but Jason went by himself to the game. The Ravens won, I watched it on TV. Jason called me and screamed “ Fair-weather fan..this…that…” Jason did it his way. He probably took his shirt off and just sat there taking it all in doing what he wanted to do. It is so ironic because the Ravens play the Steelers this weekend.

Every one loved Jason. Everyone knew Jason. Somehow, some way Jason knew you or you knew Jason. He is not here now and a little piece of me is ripped apart, but I have his heart and I have a lot bigger heart to give out to some people.

To Julie, let Dylan know this, “Dylan I will take you as my own. I will provide for you and I will make sure everything is right. Jason said he wants you to be a strong athletic Jew and I will do my best to make this turn out.

To Mom and Dad, we will get past this; we have to be strong.

To my friends, I know now that laying there now, MY BROTHER IS IN PEACE. AND..IF I KNOW THAT, I AM THE HAPPIEST PERSON HERE KNOWING HE IS IN PEACE. MIKE TYSON ONCE SAID, “YOU COULDN’T LIVE TWO MINUTES IN MY WORLD,” JASON SAID, “YOU CAN’T IMAGINE WHAT GOES ON IN MY HEAD.”

No doctors, no hospitals, he was not bi-polar, He was one person who had it tough. He was just depressed. He got a bad deck…. But….He is going somewhere now where he will reach eternal peace. He will be in peace. When I talked to him Monday night I knew he was in peace. I have never seen him like this before. I reached out but there was nothing I could do. He did it his way. He did it the only way he knew how.

Jason, I love you, from the bottom of my heart and maybe deeper. I know your pain and suffering is over. You will now have a new job, YOU will watch over me. I want to be taken care of. You are my guardian angel. Our roles are reversed, but I know you can do it, but of course you will do it your way. I know you will do it your way. I love you, I miss you and I always will, but I have to say, I truly, truly understand.