Merry Christmas Jason, I still miss you. I hope everyone has a happy holidays and spend as much time with family as they possibly can.

Beautiful words Conine. It's fine if you're writing this for yourself. It's also fine to weed off from the pain - knowing Jason, he would be perfectly fine so long we are happy - as he was truly a selfless person. I do indeed think about him quite often. Not negatively, or at least, most of the time it isn't negative. It's being happy and acknowledging my past with him.

You aren't the only one thinking about him. I hope you have a Merry Christmas.

I still miss him.

Your niece is beautiful. It’s a tragedy she will never meet you.

As I sat there forced to wait for this train, I couldn’t help but feel what you told me about the train next to our house – and how I got to think about that every time I would hear the train going by. Having moved out in ’22, that was the first time I can recall hearing a train go by, and it was hard not to feel that it wasn’t some kind of sign from you seeing as how you were directly on my mind. I just numbly stared down the tracks at the train continually coming out of the darkness, out of nowhere, until it finally ended, having made its point.

Still, life has a funny way of getting to you through all of it.

As I was driving to dance practice – a good 40 minutes away – I always cross over some railroad tracks. And today, when I was missing you and thinking about how today would be the day I would write to you, The crossing guards turned red and dropped right in front of me ( I tried to make it but they literally dropped fast right after the guy in front of me went).

This year, I felt the same, although I knew that I would come here to mark the year at some point, on my own terms. I just don’t feel that need to hit the actual day the way I used to. I probably came to the realization last year that I wasn’t really doing this for you at this point, but for myself, and if I didn’t feel like doing it, what’s the point? During those years of unrelenting pain, part of the cope was the feeling that in some way, we were all speaking to you through here, seeing as how this place meant so much to you. After all, what better place for the people that knew you best to gather and speak to you? Then the part of me getting used to the new reality has to accept the fact that you aren’t here, there’s no disappointment from you that I didn’t reach out to you, and it’s perfectly fine to just come here whenever I please and say my piece when it finally hits me, and it’ll be here for me to look at next year.

I suppose I also felt that since I was not feeling up to doing it in a “timely” manner, I deliberately did not come back, feeling that the point would have been lost if I couldn’t bring myself to do it on the proper day. We did do our usual gathering at Rotolo’s, I know that much. Your sister would have been pregnant at the time.

December hasn’t been hitting as hard as it used to lately. I was surprised to look here and see nothing from last year. I would have guessed that the five year anniversary would have triggered something, but looking back at what I wrote at four years, I’m drawing memories of frustration, futility, and most likely feeling the pain of no longer feeling the pain the way I used to. Looking at it now, on year six, I can only imagine that a year ago I felt it would be better to put nothing than to force writing whatever I was going through at the time. I do wish I would have come back later when I was up to it so I could reflect on it for this year.

happy birthday jay <3

happy birthday buddy

miss you a lot, wish we could play the mvm update together

i love you jay <3

Merry Christmas Jason :)

love you so much jay

I'm a day late buddy but I love you and happy birthday

I love you

happy birthday <3 miss u a lot

Love you Jay, happy birthday

Happy birthday bro, we miss you

Merry Christmas Jason

Love you Jay, still thinking of all the fun times we had together. Will for many more years to come.
Happy birthday man

happy belated birthday jay, sorry it's a day late still thinking about you, and missing you just as much.

I wrote a lot for you Jay, and like every other time I try to express myself to you, I delete it all. I'm sorry I'm late to your party like I always am. I love you so much, and I miss you constantly. You still come up regularly in conversations, and I still love sharing stories of when we were younger and would stay up late shooting the ♥♥♥♥ and playing games. No one can replace you Jason, not a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ soul. And I think that's why it hurt so much when you left us. Your presence meant so much to so many people and without you there's this emptiness that hasn't been filled in years. You brought so much joy and laughter and love to everyone who had the pleasure of getting to know you. I wish you were still here with us.

I love you Jason.

It gets easier with Time but the Joy you brought me never goes away.

I miss you a lot still...

I still miss you lots bud, and I hope you know we're all wishing you happy birthday <3

happy birthday jay <3

As the years pass by though, I come to the realization those thoughts are a pointless and futile effort at coping with your passing sooner and sooner every time I go through them. The waves of sadness persist, but as the years turn they slowly become more and more manageable. It certainly doesn't mean you're forgotten - you could never be forgotten - only that accepting reality is something we are gradually learning to manage. That concept brings a new type of sadness of its own.

I at least know you will always be loved and missed by your family and friends.

Forever in our hearts,

Dad

Well Jason, it's about to be what should have been your 24th birthday. It's just unimaginable to me that four years have already passed and we've all been missing you this long.

The world has changed so much during that time period, and I can't help but always wonder what you'd have to say about it. So many of your friends have been going through such developmental years in their lives and I always just find myself torn between wondering what "would coulda shoulda" been (as you told me not to think about in your final words) or just facing the reality that I have no choice but to accept the one you've given all of us.

We've all changed so much in the four years as well... everything that's changed in your sister's life, selling the old house this year, your mother's line of work, my hobbies.... I just see things that I think you would have enjoyed all the time and can't help but wonder if they might have made a difference or given you more purpose.

jason...

didnt really know him to a personal level, but a very fond memory i have is him nuking my ♥♥♥♥♥♥ mac computer with nukes in tf2 in his server, almost killed it but it was really funny, thank you for that memory. I wish i could talk to you more.

miss you

hi jay, i love you <3 a lot has happened since you left us, but not a day has gone by where i havent thought about you. cheese pizza :)

hey pal 888 days later a weird number I was in korea when it happened and im back home my gf is about to move in with me its weird your gone still a part of me still thinks your around due to how much I came and went in your life a lot...well hope youre doin ok

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A2QpThyVL8s

On a more positive note, he also made mention of what he considers to be his legacy: His painstaking research on the Projectile Shield.

https://wiki.teamfortress.com/wiki/Projectile_Shield

When I logged on to the computer, it all popped up for me and this song started playing in the background. I imagine this is how he had everything set up, and the computer timed itself out, only to reopen and miraculously, he had this lone page open up and start playing as if he had it all set up from the moment I logged in. To say it ran chills down my spine as I read it is the understatement of the century. It was as if he was speaking to me directly, not just a note he left, but an entire scenario built up to show me what was going on in his final moments.

I listened to this song over and over, just letting it run while I read his letter over and over again. If I know Jason, he probably had this song just running on repeat until the end. And as I write this, knowing him, it would not surprise me to deduce that he probably slowly built up his final strength as the song was reaching its crescendo, and timed his final moment with the end of the song.

Now that we've passed three years on this and the dust has more or less settled as much as it ever will, I feel a little more comfortable sharing some minor details with all of you that probably mean more to any of you than would ever mean to the people around him.

After the coroner and the investigative unit departed, as well as the many people who showed up to support the family, eventually I logged back on to his computer to start sorting out details and looking for answers. Through the shock of it all, it never occurred to me that he would have left anything on the computer explaining anything, but it's Jason, so OF COURSE HE DID. He left a 5-6 page word document with his final thoughts and reasonings - as I know he also did for some of you, personally, since I found those documents - but while he had that document front and center on the computer, he also had the link below running in the background on an infinite loop.

Merry christmas, we all miss you

I love you a lot Jay, and I miss you a lot. I hope you're doing well and that you know how much you're being missed.

happy birthday jay, still missing you buddy

happy birthday, jay

Happy birthday, friend. Missing you. <3

Happy Birthday! 🥰❤️

Happy birthday Jason, you would have been 23 today.

What started out as our little yearly get together grows more and more each year. It’s gotten so big now I actually have to work out planning for it because you can only show up with so many people and expect to have meaningful conversations at a pizza joint. Almost makes me want to be back in the house so I can just bring pizza there and then they can all just show up and do whatever. Pizza places here don’t seat nine easily!

It’s given me a good excuse to take tomorrow off every year to reflect on things. Not that I need a special day for that since it happens automatically every year at the beginning of December.

I’m sure I’ll have more to tell you later after the event, like the Zelda memory I’ll talk with Kaeli about, but I have to go find a way to make it through work now.

happy birthday

Happy birthday buddy, I still think of you every day <3

happy birthday <3

I love you.

I hope you're thinking of us as much as we think of you

Stay Gold!!

Hey! Do you know that every time my phone does a quick look back your almost always in the pictures. It’s funny because I really don’t have that many of you. I guess the pics seem to focus on the holidays and that’s when I must have had u in my sight. When the pictures scroll I see you but you already seemed distant. You were going through the holiday ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ and waiting for it to be over with. I want you to remember that you started the baby boy trend. I thought we would be stuck with a million girls but they all followed YOU!! Andy, Myles, James and Matthew. Their personalities are one way connected to you by you. You were one in a million Jason and still are today. Friday night we will celebrate the most amazing person I know YOU. I love and miss you more than I could ever write into words. In my dreams I am holding you and taking all your troubles away. ❤️💕

I don't know what made it happen, be it a metric ♥♥♥♥ ton of family deaths recently making me think abt everyone I've lost ever, or just the big dumb wrinkly jello in my skull just being itself, but I really never got to fully thank you and its not resting well with me. Thank you for being there when I chose to lean on you, you didn't need to let me make my problems partially yours to carry, but you took them and gave them back withpossible solutions every single time. Bc you're a good person. That's what good people do. And good people get missed.
Thank you for being an absolute homie and trying your darndest to help all those around you. I wish you could see the impact you've made on all these people in these comments.. I just know you'd be surprised, but I assure you none of us are.
Hope you're having a kickass time up there dude, tell everyone who's passed recently they're missed too please 🤍💖 Big Lov