re: Former Kentucky QB Jared Lorenzen has passed away

Hate to hear this. Like pretty much everyone else, I always enjoyed watching him play. Going off topic briefly (and I sincerely don't want to derail the thread, so please take this for what it is [ok turns out this wasn't brief at all. Skip to last paragraph for TL;DR version]), we unexpectedly lost my mom about a year and a half ago. She was (seemingly) completely healthy, and in fact currently working in the NICU of the largest hospital in my city when she started having unexplained vertigo and insomnia. Fast forward two months, and she was dead due to spontaneous Jakob-Creutzfeld disease, which I had never previously heard of, and is terrifying as frick when you learn what it is (it is a swift, brutal, always fatal disease I will spare you the details of). Given her otherwise good health, it was shocking and tragic to me and those that loved her, and she was 64 years old. Enough to bring this grown man who has lived through quite a bit to his knees. Losing a 38 year old family member has to be fricking sickening. My prayers go out to his friends and family, especially his children who won't get to make anymore memories with their father.

All of this to say, none of the nice words or condolences people said/expressed to me helped in any way whatsoever (I appreciated them, mind you). Even having gone through everything with my mother, I didn't know what to say to someone else who was experiencing a loss until recently. I read somewhere (wish I could remember and give credit) that one of the best things you can say to someone who lost a loved one is to ask them to tell you about them - in general, a favorite memory(ies), etc. Even though no one asked me that, it stuck with me because out of all of the kind words and condolences the only thing that ever came close to making me feel better was when someone shared a memory of my mom with me. While we can't ask his loved ones to tell us about him, we can share some of our favorite memories of him on the board. Maybe it will help a big fan of his who reads this, or a friend, or maybe even a family member eventually, feel a little better. I've already occupied enough space in this thread, but I would like to encourage y'all to share your favorite memories of JL. My apologies for the novel.