For over three years I worked at my uncle’s tire shop. I was a tire monkey and a basic mechanic and I learned a lot. I gain a large amount of knowledge about cars and met some great people, among which were Steve and Jason Petersen.

Together they were a couple of cousins out for a good laugh and separate two men how fought to provide for their families. Today there is only one and the laughter remains but it labored. Steve lost a cousin, a brother and a friend.

Jason worked. I don’t remember the last time I saw him doing anything other than working. Even when he was done working he was still selling and trading snowmobiles and cars like so many cards I used to trade in my youth.

Yet even in his work he was happy, always with the quick wit to crack a joke or work out the makings of some more elaborate trick. No one can attest to this more than Steve who found himself at the receiving end of some of Jason’s best.

Along with the smiles Jason bore his children with pride, another Petersen trait. After I had moved on from the shop I still returned to visit and upon one return Jason greeted me with his normal care and concern. Then he asked if I had heard that he had another child on the way. That was what he most wanted to share. It is a little story and poorly told yet it is telling none the less.

There is much more to share and many better than I to do so, but I would offer this. Many tears will be shed and they will not be enough. Many words will be shared and they will fall short. But in the laughter that will continue we will best remember Jason Petersen, for that may be his greatest offering. He loved with a reckless abandon and taught those who knew him to love and laugh as he did.

My only pictures of Jason are in my memories but they are fond memories and for the life of me I cannot think of a time that I saw him when he didn’t smile. I hope that we will meet again in heaven.

Your smile and laugh linger, but you are missed my friend.