To pay my last respects, I'm going to share a humorous story. I'll miss you, Jay.

Just last week, my good friend Jason, whom I had known since second grade, was laid to rest. While he was driving with his fiancé, a drunk driver hit the car and killed both Jason and the driver of the other car. His fiancé survived. I thought I'd share a story about Jason from when we were in college. To pay my last respects, I'm going to share a humorous story. I'll miss you, Jay.

I'm not against drinking and having a good time, but drinking and driving is something I'll NEVER understand. My best friend Ruth, her boyfriend Ross and I all went to the same college, and even lived in the same co-ed residence hall. One night, in October, after getting together to watch a movie, the three of us ran into Jason, a friend the three of us grew up with. We were delighted to learn that Jason also went to school with us, although he lived in a different hall.

I had had a big crush on Jason since middle school, but I never pursued it. Back home, Jason had been a real ladies man, so I figured he'd never look twice at me. The four of us decided to get together that night in Jason's room to play cards and have drinks (we were seniors, all over 21). At around eleven o'clock, the four of us were, well, very inebriated and we had thrown our playing cards away and decided to play charades. We quickly realized that we were much too plastered to play that game, so Ross came up with another idea: "Let's do something illegal!"

"You idiot!" I exclaimed. "Do you really want to go to jail?!"

Ruth, who is a real goodie-goodie, decided that doing something illegal was an absurd idea. It was Jason who came up with the plan. It wasn't actually illegal. We planned to sneak into a cemetery after midnight. Although it wasn't really "illegal," it was, um, rebellious.

So we picked up our little flashlights and bundled up in our coats, mittens and boots, (where we live, it snows in October!) and began a half-mile hike, still looped, and incredibly loud and raucous. About halfway into our trek, Ruth's flashlight batteries ran dead, and she let out a screech. Ross turned to her and said very loudly: "Shut up, goddamn it! You're gonna wake up the fucking neighborhood!"

At the time, I seemed to think it was the funniest thing I had ever heard, and I began laughing hysterically. I laughed so hard, in fact, that I fell face first into a huge snowdrift. That only made me laugh harder, especially when my impaired motor skills rendered me incapable of even getting up. It was Jason who managed to pick my drunken ass up off the snow. Eventually, we managed to get to the very tiny cemetery (but it took us nearly an hour).

From the moment we began our journey, we were all somewhat paranoid that once we reached the cemetery, a burglar (grave robber, I guess) might come and kill us. And, as a result, we jumped at any little thing--from a cat yowling to a car door slamming. To our surprise, the gates to the cemetery were already open--so much for breaking in.

The cemetery was rather small, but still, for four drunken college idiots, it was a long trek in a foot of snow to the middle of the cemetery. When we got there, we took a seat by an old tree and contemplated what to do next. Ross was pissed off because he thought we were going to do something fun other than sitting on our asses in the cemetery and soon, he and Jason got into an argument. Then out-of-nowhere drunken Ross exclaimed, "Ok, Jason, you wanna kick my ass? You wanna kick my ass? Come're and kick my ass!"

Again, I thought this was hilarious, but Ruth decided she had had enough and tried to stop them. When she got up, she seemed to forget where she was and looked down at one of the headstones and screamed. Apparently, the cemetery was a lot older than any of us expected. Two nearby headstones had death dates of 1871 and 1869. Ross looked and began laughing his head off and said, "I know what we can do!"

Then he dropped to his knees and tried to force another nearby headstone, this one much newer, over on its face. Needless to say, it didn't work. Well, Jason thought that looked like fun, and forgetting about the fight, he decided he was going to help Ross knock over the gravestones. Jason took one step and slipped. No one will ever forget the tremendous THUD we heard when his head collided with the corner of a gravestone.

Ruth started screaming and carrying on: "Omigod, omigod, omigod! WE KILLED JASON! WE KILLED JASON!"

While Ross tried to calm her down, I turned Jason over onto his back. 'Oh my God!' I mouthed to myself at the scene. Blood was gushing out of his nose, mouth and lips. And I HATE the sight of blood.

I'm sure Jason noticed my shock and he shouted, "Oh my God-- Is it bad? Is it bad? It really hurts! Is it bad?" He kept saying this over and over. The front of his jacket, the headstone, and the snow were all sprayed with his blood. The combination of the alcoholic beverages and the sight of blood, was too much for me and I started puking. Meanwhile, Jason frantically shoveled handfuls of snow into his face to numb the pain and stop the bleeding, as Ruth continued her hysterical screaming and crying. Ross laughed it off and said, "These stones can't be THAT fucking hard!" and walked up to two of the older ones. He reached his foot back to Alabama and kicked the stone with all his might. I couldn't believe what happened next.

His foot went right through the gravestone!

I'm sure at that moment, the four of us were quite a sight:

1. a loud, screaming girl;
2. a loud, vomiting girl;
3. a loud, bleeding boy and
4. a loud, swearing boy.

Ruth shouted, "We've got to get outta here! We've got to get outta here!" However, Jason was still bleeding profusely, and as long as that continued, I would still be barfing my guts out.

Then, suddenly, two lights flashed on. They were headlights. Oh no! The fuzz! The pigs! The po-pos! The COPS!

The four of us looked up like deer caught in headlights. Luckily, the bit of vomit in my throat crawled right back down. There was no way possible that they were going to take us in, so we hightailed it down the trail like bats out of hell. When we got to the gate, we were horrified to find that it was locked! Ruth started screaming again, which made us all panic even more. We absolutely could NOT go to jail, and decided to continue running. Ross said, "Quick, over the fence!"

Ruth said, "No way! I'm not climbing!"

Jason: "I think I lost a tooth! It hurts! It hurts!"

Me: "You guys! We have to go right now!"

Ruth finally stopped whining about climbing the fence and just did it. As soon as the last of us had successfully scaled the fence, we ran straight home to where Ruth and I lived. Even though it was nearly 1:30, and our RA was up, she wasn't too happy. We weren't kicked out, thankfully. And our RA was very understanding and helped Jason to the infirmary. She told Ross, Ruth and I to get back to our rooms in case the cops showed up. They never did.

The next morning, we woke up with horrible hangovers, and with the hope that what we did the night before was all just a dream. Jason, spent the entire night in the infirmary. We found him later that day with a pretty badly broken nose and two black eyes. He saw several cop cruisers patrolling around campus that night, which made him nervous. But by morning, the cops had evidently given up looking for the four disturbing-the-peace-ers. Jason and I became closer after that incident, and started going out.

After college ended, we moved in together, and last year, he proposed to me. Our wedding was supposed to be this summer. I love you, Jason.