Kim Hassell needs to pause to contain her tears, because remembering her son’s words that day are words that a mother can never forget when her heart is pierced the way it was, even 20 years later.
The boy was in kindergarten when he realized that no one else had a left hand that looked like his own, a little hand that was deformed at birth with only the appearance of a little finger and a thumb, perhaps an inch inward. size, the middle of the hand folded. And he turned to his mother in Titusville, Florida, at home that day and asked:
“How come God didn’t make me like my friends? Why didn’t God make me like the rest of the kids in my class? If I just die, I can be born again, so maybe I can be like everyone else. ”
The boy remembers. Of course yes.
“Just being around other kids, seeing them happy all the time and doing things daily with both hands, I didn’t understand why it was different,” JT Hassell told The Post after Jets’ training on Wednesday -market. “I kind of started to hate myself in a way and to hate the way I was born.”
On this Christmas day, Hassell can look back on a remarkable journey that somehow, somehow, led him to the Jets. They somehow became the 1-13 Jets the day he made his debut with the team and blocked a punt that created a field goal at Rams’ 23-20 turn, preventing a miracle, will send Trevor Lawrence to the Jaguars .
Hassell can look in the mirror now and see inspiration not only for his mother, but also for everyone with disabilities, for everyone forced to endure the cruel slings and arrows of petty bullies, for everyone who has lost a best friend to armed violence, to everyone who grew up fighting in a single mother’s home, everyone looking for a father figure, everyone who refuses to take no for an answer and can write a story about the triumph of the human spirit.
He can smile through the ups and downs of his life and the precarious NFL career he dreamed of as a boy, now believing that God never hated him, but always loved him.
“For me, being in this situation on the phone with you right now is all from God,” said Hassell. “I don’t even know how I do it sometimes. I am the type of person who needs to find a way. Sometimes it may be that there is no way for me or there is no opportunity for me for some reasons, but I just have to go and find a way. “
A way to make tackles with gloves sewn by your mother. One way to lift weights on your Pro Day. One way to get from South Dakota to Florida Tech, to be a free non-hired agent, to play four games safely and on special teams with the Browns 2019, for the squad of Patriots training for several days, for Jets.
“I am grateful for all the things I go through, because it allows me to help other people,” said Hassell. “Many people come to me for help and motivation and just want to tell me about themselves, because they know that I have been through everything. They just see a smile on my face every day, no matter what I’m going through. So that they see the strength, courage and passion that I have every day of life, no matter what I am going through, it is someone you want to be with and that motivates you to live a happy life. “
They say he sometimes takes a village.
“Teachers would not allow people to make fun of him,” said Kim Hassell. “They were not going to allow him to be treated differently.”
She worked three jobs to try to survive and has driven a school bus for the Brevard County School Board for 19 years. She never missed JT’s college games, first in Titusville HS, then in Astronaut HS. And she only missed a game at Florida Tech, an hour’s drive from her home, because of an impending hurricane.
“I am the mother who is always there,” said Kim. “I would donate my plasma and save my money in the off-season with my plasma card, so I can travel to go to college games.”
She offered to make him a prosthesis when he was about 10, but JT refused.
“I want to be like God created me,” he said.
She is one of the biggest motivators of her life, along with her son Cameron, who turns 7 in February. She and a small group of family members exploded when he blocked the blow to the Rams.
“We got out of our chairs and everyone stood up screaming!” Kim said.
She knew exactly what living that NFL dream meant to him.
“Seeing him being able to fulfill a life goal he made is very exciting for me,” said Kim. “He would be the first one in training and the last one to leave in training. On the weekends, the children are sleeping – not my son. Six o’clock in the morning, ‘Can you take me to the gym?’ “
“Before the play happened,” said JT, “I was literally talking to my teammates on the sideline, like, ‘I can’t believe I’m on the sideline now playing this game.’ I was literally at my mom’s house.
“And then I went and blocked the kick, and it gave me a lot of joy for me and my teammates.”
He just wishes that Johntay Gowdie could have shared it with him too.
“My best friend was shot in the head when I was younger, he was like a brother next to me, we grew up playing football together. I still think about it every day, ”said JT.
He is proud of himself today, and deserves to be, and has finished writing a book about his 25-year life.
“Even out of the hands situation, I’ve been through a lot in my life,” said Hassell. “No matter what I go through, I just keep going. … I am more proud than anyone can be. I’m my biggest fan. Everyone doesn’t know the things I went through or how difficult it is to get to that point in my life. “
Against all odds, he got there. “Being here,” said JT Hassell, “is really a dream come true.”
A dream Christmas.