Jason Alan Tharpe

4/8/82 – 08/17/16

As I write this brief document, I will write about the good things I remember of Jason. I know that Jason was not an angel or a saint, but he was a good person who had a hard life. For the most part, Jason appeared “normal” to the average person, but he suffered with severe seizures for almost his entire life that doctors could never find a way to fully control. Seizures diminish one’s ability to the 7 preform other cognitive functions well. I think he carried this burden well. &, we tried all the therapies doctors’ recommended from electric shock therapy (depression) to whatever new medicine came on the market. Jason was rushed to the emergency room several times with such severe convulsions that they did not think he would live & they had to give him anti-convulsive medicine intravenously. One other thing that we think played a large role in Jason’s mental health was an incident that occurred when he was 15. He & some of his friends found a gun that they thought was not loaded. One of his friends put the gun to Jason’s head & pulled the trigger. Nothing happened. The cocked the trigger a second time & just fired the gun severely wounding another friend who had to be rushed to the hospital in critical condition. Jason frequently remembered that incident & it colored much of his thinking. We did not pay much attention to this incident until much later after Jason talked about it so much. The physician thought that Jason suffered from PTSD. As we look back this diagnosis makes much sense as we have learned so much more about PTSD.

I recount these two factors in Jason’s life to remind us of the basically unseen struggles he faced. Most of us are aware of the other struggles in his life, but these two events help define him.

Jason was generally outgoing, friendly, witty, & caring person. After I moved to Birmingham, he would call me every day, sometimes several times a day, to see how I was doing & to tell me he loved me. He called his siblings frequently to see how they were doing. He dearly loved his mother.

He loved to try different kinds of foods. He would eat anything to taste it – sometimes he learned for his mother. When he & I & his sister were visiting Vietnam, we were on the beach with friends & they cooked all kinds of sea food, squid, snails, etc. Jason tried it all & loved it. He even got me to taste some of the food & it was good.

He loved adventure. He loved to climb difficult terrain, take bungee jumps as well as take zip-line rides. He loved to snorkel & follow the fish underwater. We took a plane ride over the volcano in Hawaii & he was amazed by the heat of the fire below, particularly as it devoured a tree in its path. He loved Hana highway on Maui, with all its curves & single lane roads & the beautiful waterfalls just above the ocean. He loved the rainbows we saw all the time as we swam on Waikiki beach.

He loved the trip Jamie, Jason, & I took out west where we drove through various states. We had to go see the Indians who lived on the mountain side in southern Colorado (something he learned about in Galloway School). We had to climb the steep ladders to visit their homes on the mountainside. When we came to the Grand Canyon, we had to walk to the bottom. We did. We went to the bottom & the climb back up was very difficult for me. Finally, Jason & Jamie asked to go ahead so they could get back to the top more quickly. He loved Yosemite Park. He loved all the places we visited from Washington DC, to Boston, To Toronto, to San Francisco, & Seoul, South Korea, to Hong Kong, Saigon, Vietnam, Bangkok, Singapore, as well as London, Amsterdam, & Paris. He loved to explore, see historic sites, & learn about other people, how they lived & what was important to their lives.

He knew directions & could find things easily. He was never lost. When we were in London, we had climbed to the top of St. Paul’s Cathedral. When I got down (last because I was always the slowest), we could not find Jason. We looked for over an hour at all the shops& all around St. Paul’s but could not find him. We finally went back to the hotel hoping the police would return a lost boy. But, he was in bed eating Ice cream. He found his way back to our hotel having to change trains & walk several blocks to get to the hotel. How he did that we will never know (he was only 9).

He loved architecture & served an internship with an architectural firm in Atlanta & was awarded a summer internship at Georgia Tach. He loved his time at Georgia Tech studying architecture. He was admitted to all the colleges he applied to from Mercer University, to Drexel in Philadelphia, to the University of Montana & Georgia Tech. He wanted to be an engineer & architect.

These are just a few of the stories & incidents that highlight some of Jason’s life. He left us too soon, but we will always remember his kindness, his caring, his sense of life, & his love of his family.