I’d like to tell you a few things about Jason, since I’ve known him for a long time.
Jason was born January 3, 1982, weighing in at 9 pounds 3 ounces. He was the 3rd child of Rick and Pam Hellewell. His older sister Christine was almost 4 years old.
We lost his older sister Erica, our second child, who only lived a few hours. Pam got pregnant about a year later and had an ultrasound, which was unusual at that time. The ultrasound showed that it was a boy. So Pam got a t-shirt that said ‘it’s a boy.’ Everyone asked how she knew it was a boy, and Pam said that we had pictures to prove it. Pam was very happy when Jason was born, and would sit with him at night rubbing his head.
Right after birth, there is an overwhelming love for a new infant, a very strong maternal bond. This bond between mother and child is very powerful, and continues throughout life.
There are many childhood memories we have of Jason.
When he was three, he got a Winnie the Pooh windup musical stuffed animal that he loved. It somehow got lost, and Jason insisted that Mom had to buy a new one to replace it.
When about 5, he sold his older sister’s Barbie motor home for 5 cents during a garage sale, and he was so proud to give that nickel to Christine.
Jason watched out for Stacy during our church’s children’s primary time when Stacy was 3. He wanted to make sure she was safe and happy. During his short presentation during one ‘sharing time’, he made sure that he smiled at his little sister, encouraging her to participate.
Jason enjoyed watching the Curious George cartoons: he watched those still-frame movies over and over. Another childhood favorite was Lucky Luke cartoons.
When he was older, he enjoyed climbing the trees in the yards of our two houses. He would get very high in the tree, almost to the top, and would sit there for a long time just enjoying the experience. That was also something that I did as a youth; I would climb high into a tree and read a book. He seemed to enjoy being on high places, looking out over things. At home, he’d climb a tree or the roof of the house. Or he’d hike up to the small hills that were behind our Newcastle house. He really enjoyed hiking around the cabin in Strawberry, climbing the “Lover’s Leap” mountain that was in back of our cabin. One of the pictures that we enjoy is of him at the top of that mountain.
Jason has always had a sweet spirit and personality. I found this entry in an early journal of mine when Jason was about 6. “When I came home from work today, Christine told me that Jason was in trouble, but she wouldn’t tell me why. So I went back to our bathroom to find Pam mopping up after the lake that Jason made by overflowing the shower. It got into the rug, so Pam had pulled it back to help it dry out. Jason was quietly sitting in his room in his pajamas. Later he came out and quietly (holding back the tears) gave his mother $6 of his own money to buy some laundry detergent to wash all the towels that Mom had used.”
Jason enjoyed magic tricks, performing simple tricks for his family and friends. He was able to juggle. We would always buy a case of mandarin oranges in season, and Jason would juggle them. He got better at juggling, and was even able to juggle small kitchen knives … but not while Mom was home. He had several favorite magicians: David Copperfield, Doug Henning, and David Blaine. We would tape their television specials so we could watch them again and try to figure out the trick. Jason was able to duplicate David Blaine’s illusion of floating off of the ground.
When Pam’s sister Cindy got married, Jason was a seven year old dancing machine. He wore a tux, had a flattop haircut, and danced with everyone. He even waited outside the bathroom for a chance to dance with the bride – his Aunt Cindy.
Jason was involved in youth soccer as he grew up in Loomis. He played soccer for about five years. Then he qualified to be a soccer referee, and did that for a few seasons. We would get up early on Saturday mornings; load the soccer goal pipes and nets in the truck, and set up the soccer field before the first game started at 8:00am. He’d have a cooler with snacks and juice to have during breaks between games. Then in the afternoon, we loaded the metal pipe goals and nets back into the truck for the game next week.
Christmas memories are special in our family. As a child, Jason would enjoy Christmas, dressing up in a red ‘feetie’ pajamas, a pillow stuffed inside, a paper beard of cotton balls, and a red Santa hat as he went around to the neighbors’ house passing out candy canes. He would wear the same Santa suit on Christmas morning as he passed out Christmas presents to his family. One of our treasured traditions was the three children dressing in identical pajamas, sleeping in the same room on Christmas Eve. His sisters would be in their beds, and Jason would sleep on the floor. The three would exchange one or two carefully selected Christmas presents with each other as they would wait for Pam and I to let them out of their rooms and into the living room to the rest of the presents under the Christmas tree.
Even after Jason moved into his own apartment, he would continue that Christmas tradition of spending the night at our house, with all three children wearing the same pajama pants and sleeping in the same room. In the morning, they would wait, as they always did, for Pam and me to let them into the living room to open presents. This tradition was special to our family, and Jason was a willing participant in that tradition.
One of Jason’s earliest and best friends was his cousin Dusty Bosworth. They lived next door to us in Loomis. Since they were close in age, they attended the same schools and participated in the same activities.
They spent many hours of their youth riding bikes, playing together in their back yards, and climbing the tall trees that we had in our back yard. They played soccer together in youth leagues, and were both youth soccer referees, often on the same field.
Our family was able to use the Pam’s parent’s cabin in Strawberry for many summer vacations. Most summers, each of the children was able to invite a close friend to spend a week at the cabin. Several times it was his cousin Dusty that came to the cabin with Jason. Hiking the mountains, exploring and swimming in the river were among their activities. Once they slept outside the cabin in a small tent. But after hearing some snuffling noise, perhaps a bear (they said), they decided to finish out the night in the cabin.
Jason’s friendship with Dusty lasted into high school Tragically, Dusty died in 1997 at the age of 17. This deeply affected Jason throughout the rest of his life. Several of Jason’s treasured pictures are Jason and Dusty on some adventure. As recognition of this friendship, we were able to get a gravesite for Jason in the same area as Dusty’s, and Jason’s grandfather Don Kent.
As we went through some of Jason’s possessions these past few days, we found the album of his favorite photo memories. Among them were pictures of his time with Dusty and Jacob Groth at the cabin, along with others of his close friends.
Jacob was another one of Jason’s childhood friends. They also participated in youth soccer leagues, and they were both on the freshman football team at Del Oro High School. Jacob was also often invited to stay with our family at the cabin.
Another close friend during high school and later was Steve Chambers, who previously spoke. They continued their friendship, working together at Carl’s Jr and at Vital Marketing, sometimes having deep philosophical conversations together.
Other close friends included John Konar and Seth Aston, who he met in junior high school and who developed a deep friendship with Jason that has lasted until now.
Jason had some cool cars after getting his drivers’ license. They were older cars, but he enjoyed them with his friends. Except maybe the Geo, which had an unfortunate minor accident one day while Jason was driving Stacy to high school. The front end was damaged beyond repair, which made his sister Stacy happy as it would have been her car when she got her license.
Jason attended Del Oro high school, and graduated from Maidu High School in 2000. He took some classes at Sierra College; his favorites were those that required deep thinking, such as philosophy and psychology. He had a wide variety of books on different subjects in his apartment.
Jason has quite an extended family. There are dozens of cousins and nieces and nephews, along with aunts and uncles. Family get-togethers are often a large scale affair. We have heard from many of them about how they enjoyed Jason’s company during the brief time they were together at family functions.
Jason had only a few jobs. In high school, he worked with his good friend Steve at the Carl’s Jr just down the street from this building. He also worked for an internet service provider in their customer service group.
His most recent job was at Vital Merchant Services, a company that sells point of sales systems. It is one of the largest transaction services companies in North America. When you use your ATM or credit card, chances are you are using equipment from Vital. Jason worked in their shipping department for several years, lately as one of the leads of the shipping department. They have told us that Jason was an excellent employee, always willing to help others. His attention to detail and his concern for his fellow employees will be missed by those at Vital.
Jason was clearly a creative person. He had a great talent in music, poetry, and art. His talent in drawing started at an early age. He took an art class in high school. A photography class allowed him to express his artistic ability through pictures. His high school senior project was a short adventure video/movie that he filmed with his friends.
A visitor to his downtown apartment would see obvious indications of this talent. His walls had several of his pencil drawings, and there are other great drawings in several of his notebooks. A few of them are displayed in the back area.
And there was his musical studio that took up most of the room in his small studio apartment. Several computers and monitors, midi keyboards and other instruments, and sound mixers were well-organized into his personal recording studio. He used this equipment to create and mix his songs, including the ones that we played for visitors before this service. He also wrote the lyrics to many of his songs. And he designed cover art for several of his musical projects.
This musical talent was almost entirely self-taught. Among his possessions were many books on musical theory. He had a great ‘ear’ for the proper tonings and shadings of music, as evidenced by the excellence of all of his recorded music.
His musical tastes were varied. His Vital coworkers recalled that his CD player in his work area would be playing rock music one time, then country music, and then classical music. He was very interested in the many different ways that notes could be used to create different styles of music.
Jason was in a ‘garage’ band with several of his friends: Steve, Danny, Cody, and Sohrab. They self-produced for family and friends two Christmas albums as the “Yuletide Wranglers”. And other styles of music were performed by this band.
Jason composed and performed the music with this band for three independent films. I believe that the latest film will be shown next month at the Sacramento Independent Film Festival.
Several weeks ago, Jason put together the music for the wedding reception of his good friend John Konar and his new wife Bonnie. Jason told us that he had really enjoyed that experience, and we value John’s friendship with Jason.
We also value all of Jason’ friends, Sohrab, Danny, Cody who were members of his band along with Steve, and Jason’s other friends that will miss him. Jason valued his friendships, even though it was sometimes difficult to express himself with words.
Jason’s music was full-featured and impressive to listen to. His future music plans were quite intriguing yet unfulfilled. I plan on trying to pull together his unfinished works and share them with his friends and family.
Music was very important to Jason. He wrote that he was “fascinated by music, because even though there are standard tunings, scales, rhythms, etc, the creative possibilities are quite literally infinite. The nature of sound has no boundaries, and to me the most beautiful music goes beyond popular music standards for the sake of originality.”
Jason was a private person who sometimes found it difficult to initiate relationships. But once he built a friendship with someone, that friendship was lasting and continual. You have heard about his friendships in his early years, with his cousin Dusty Bosworth, Jacob Groth, and Seth Aston. You have heard from his best friends Steven and Jon about their long-lasting friendship with Jason, and they have shared experiences about others that he knew in his adult life. As his parents and family, we are extremely grateful for those friends and their friendships with Jason. We hope they will continue to keep in touch with us.
If you have time before you leave, we invite you to look at some pictures of Jason and his family and friends, and some of Jason’s art work, that are on tables in the back.
We remember all of these things and more about Jason. His love for his music. His crookedy smile. His closeness to his friends. His artistic talents of drawing, poetry, and music.
We are here to celebrate Jason’s life. He had a loving family, good friends, and great artistic talents.
We appreciate the support and loving thoughts of Jason’s friends and coworkers, and the friends, and family of our family. There have been many selfless acts of kindness during the past few days, and our family wants you to know that they are much appreciated.
Our family and our church believe that families are forever. We believe that our family members are together not just here at this time, but will be together again after we pass on. We believe that those family members who have preceded us are welcoming Jason into their midst. We also believe that friends are forever. The friendships that we build in this life will not end in our passing from this life. It is these beliefs, and the support of all of you, that helps us at this time.
Thank you for letting me share these memories of our son Jason.