One of the last moments Jessica Brown spent with her son Jake Curtis was in their kitchen.
She was having a bad day, and Jake wanted to comfort his mother.
“He came over and wrapped his arms around me and called me ‘shrimp,'” she said. That was his nickname for her because he was so much taller than her.
“He hugged me really warmly and said, ‘It will be OK, Mom. You’ll be OK,'” Brown recalled.
She responded: “I’d be lost in this world without you.”
Brown was one of several speakers at Saturday’s memorial service and paddle-out at Goleta Beach to remember her son Jake Curtis, who along with two classmates died in a car wreck on Highway 1 on May 18.
Several hundred people attended the service, including his parents, siblings, friends, family and community members. Curtis, along with 15-year-old Alexander Wood and 17-year-old Michael Ochsner, all Dos Pueblos High School students, died in the crash that also seriously injured Lompoc physician Hafez Nasr and his wife, Saghar Golpayegani.
The speakers at Goleta Beach on Saturday talked about his love for life, his sense of humor and willingness to help anyone. Curtis, 18, a senior at Dos Pueblos High School, spent time playing with and caring for his younger brother Jackson, who has Down Syndrome.
He taught his sister Delaney to play guitar. And there was so much more, his mom said. She’ll miss the funny Instagram reels he would send her. He spent hours listening to his vinyl records and would impress his contemporary and historical musical knowledge on her. She recalls how happy he was to blare music while in the shower.
They’d have Nerf gun and silly string wars in the backyard; and when he was reluctant to wake up in the morning for school, she’d blow a horn at him.
And the daily things, like how they would banter about life in the kitchen while she made dinner. She loved everything about him.
“Jake was the backbone of our family,” she said. “I would give it all back just to have one more minute with him.”
Jake’s little sister took the microphone to share some stories about her brother.
“He was so good at Monopoly,” Delaney said. “It was frustrating how good he was.”
They also had an understanding about some things.
“He would take me out in the morning to go eat ice cream for breakfast,” she said. “Or he’d say, ‘Let’s go run an errand,’ which meant let’s go get something to eat.”
Jake’s cousin Jade fought back tears when describing the relationship with her cousin.
He was 10 days older than her, and he never let her forget it. They were attached at the hip from a very young age. They spent hours at the beach together playing in the sand and got their hands dirty every year on the family annual dove hunting trip in Yuma, Arizona.
On Thursday, Jade’s Catholic high school held its baccalaureate mass in honor of graduates. During the prayers of the faithful, Jake’s name was read.
“It didn’t really feel real until that moment,” Jade said. “In that moment I felt such profound sadness, but also his presence saying, ‘You’re A, being dramatic, and B, I am fine; I am happy and I am safe.'”
She said nothing in life is guaranteed.
“He was so compassionate and caring,” she said. “The first thing he would do would give me this giant hug.”
Without him, she said, “the world will be missing a beacon of life that it needs now more than ever.”
Jade said his death “feels so wrong.”
“We’re all going to miss him so much,” she said. “I feel like a part of me is missing. He was so good.”
Among the speakers on Saturday were his mother, father Dax Curtis, grandparents Jeff and Kate Brown, his uncle Justin Curtis, sister Delaney Curtis, his uncle Robert Curtis, and several of his friends, along with a church pastor.
Robert Curtis said one his best moments with Jake was during the annual dove hunting trips.
“We just had a really good time,” he said. “It was some of the best family bonding you could ask for, whether it was shooting shotguns, getting birds, or jumping into rivers or wrestling in the hotel swimming pool, we were always kind of joking with each other. We just had so much fun.”
He joked that the last couple of years it was harder to “give him noogies because he was getting so much taller” than him.
My new saying is I am going to be like Jake on this matter and approach things like Jake because he was very present and very thoughtful in everything he did. Anything he put his mind to, he did it well.
Jessica Brown urged the crowd to be patient and live in the moment.
“It’s through you that his legacy lives on,” she said. “His memory lives on in all of you. The way we keep him going is to go forward and be great. He never got the chance to live his dreams, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t throw yourself wholeheartedly into everything you do, like he did.”
