Post #9 - Long Live Jasper

What a day it has been. Yesterday was intense, really intense. (see post #8).
So, as Chris had mentioned, there were indeed two stabbings. The one that Carol and I saw went by the mane of Jasper Howard. He was on the UCONN football team and had contributed greatly to the winning of yesterday's football game (38-25). Jasper was sent to Windham hospital before being airlifted to St. Francis's hospital where he was declared dead  Jasper was the first in his family to make it to college and "often talked about his dream of making it professionally so that he could support his family"  (http://www.courant.com/sports/uconn-football/hc-uconn-stabbing-jasper-howard-1018,0,69181.story). His family lives down in Miami, Fl and will be flown up to Connecticut soon. One of the saddest things that I heard about this, beside's Jasper's death, was that he was a daddy-to-be.

I think my heart stopped.

I can't even begin to wonder the despair that his girlfriend must be feeling right now. His girlfriend lives down in Florida and was up over the weekend to visit him. The devistation she must be going through is too great for words. It is a wonder that she was not at that party. My heart goes out to her as she raises the baby. this may not be fact, but i have heard that the child will have many many "uncles" as the football team will make every attempt to make the child's life as good as it can be. Talk about loyalty to a team member. I think that is so amazing what they are doing. The whole team must be going through such a hard time at this moment and this child will surely bring them even closer together and allow Jasper's memory to live on forever. Also, I suspect that when that baby is born, every single team member will be in that hospital room on the day of the delivery (if it's close enough or feasible to pull it off, she does live in Florida). If so, wouldn't that just melt your heart? if that was in the news, i would be so estatic; we don't see enough of that these days. We need more compassion in this world.

For everyone's sake, I seriously hope everything works out for Jasper's girlfriend and child. Jasper's memorial service should be soon and I'm definetly going to attend if possible. I'll make every attempt possible and I hope some of you do too.

Thats about it for now, I'll write more soon, thanks for reading,

dan