FORKS — Kasey Scarlett remembered the phone call last Sunday that told her about the death of her friend Jacob Hanson. The 19-year-old had taken his own life, a little more than three months after his brother, Marine Lance Cpl. Jason Hanson, 21, was killed by a suicide bomber in Iraq.
“I lost my fiance, but most of all, my best friend,” Scarlett, also 19, told a gathering of 250 Saturday at Forks High School’s Performing Arts Center.
“He didn’t do this to hurt us,” Scarlett said.
“He used to say, `You can’t stay mad at this face.’ And I can’t.”
Forks Baptist Church pastor Bob Schwartz, officiating at the memorial service, also asked Jacob’s friends and family to “concentrate on the good times you spent with him.”
Don’t let anger and bitterness cloud your memory, Schwartz said.
“His was an act of a broken heart. It wasn’t vindictive in any way, shape or form.
“It would be easy to say two things: `If only I would have . . .’ and `Why did I . . . ?’ You could beat yourself to death. This experience could have a whole bunch of victims.
“Jacob wouldn’t want that.”
Many of us have descended into periods of despair like the one Jacob fell into, Schwartz added.
He quoted Bible verses about moments when Moses and the prophets Elijah believed they couldn’t go on.
But those moments pass, Schwartz said, and “there’s joy in life.
“Keep your eyes out for each other, for someone who’s maybe taking this a little bit harder.
“Put your arm around them, not just today, but do it down the road.”
Jacob was the youngest of four children. He is survived by his brother Sam, 24, and his sister Sarah, 25.
Jacob’s mother, Carol, said he “had a heart bigger than the sky.
“He was caught up in a moment of pain he couldn’t see his way through.
“I send him off with peace. I send him off with gratitude because he was alive, and because I would not have missed that for the world.”
