{"id":4500,"date":"2014-01-27T13:09:54","date_gmt":"2014-01-27T18:09:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nccpantherprint.com\/home\/?p=4500"},"modified":"2014-01-27T13:09:54","modified_gmt":"2014-01-27T18:09:54","slug":"tribute-to-aj","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/nccpantherprint.com\/home\/2014\/01\/27\/tribute-to-aj\/","title":{"rendered":"Tribute to AJ"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Evan Sasiela \u201814<\/p>\n

Co-Editor In Chief<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

It was a cold and cloudy Wednesday afternoon in a full St. Helen Church where our community said goodbye to Aj Stewart. Aj was an 18 year old senior at Heritage who attended St. Helen and St. Stephen Catholic Schools. He passed away on Sunday, January 19, after a hard fought battle with cancer. However, even though he is gone he will not be forgotten. Aj was the kind of kid that you just wanted to be around. He was always energetic, driven, happy, and friendly. I have gone to school with Aj all of grade school and he was a joy to be around. Aj was always short in size but that didn\u2019t stop him from making the clutch shot in basketball, getting the big hit in baseball, scoring the big goal in hockey, or even coming up with the big tackle as a nose guard in football. He also played lacrosse at Heritage. Aj played those five sports throughout his life, and skated, and was successful at each one. \u00a0Aj was also a big gamer, as he stood outside in the cold for five hours with Nouvel\u2019s own Eduardo Serrato to receive an Xbox One at Best Buy. However, what Aj did as an athlete and a gamer never will be as great as what he was as a person. I will always remember two things about Aj: his courage and how he lived life. Aj was the strongest kid I have met after battling cancer. He had a fight and drive like no one else. Aj had the most contagious smile and personality and made everyone\u2019s day better.\u00a0 At one of the most emotional funerals I have ever attended, which included a letter of recommendation to Columbia College Chicago where Aj wanted to attend to study video game design and a beautiful instrumental of \u201cAmazing Grace\u201d by a bagpipe player, I remembered these things about him. As we drove to the cemetery, the sun came out and I just wondered if it was a sign from Aj telling us \u201cevery little thing\u2019s gonna be alright,\u201d which is a lyric from Bob Marley, who Aj admired. Throughout life, I, and you all, should follow Aj\u2019s way of living by making the most out of each day and to \u201cnever give up.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Evan Sasiela \u201814 Co-Editor In Chief   It was a cold and cloudy Wednesday afternoon in a full St. Helen Church where our community said goodbye to Aj Stewart. Aj was an 18 year old senior at Heritage who attended St. Helen and St. Stephen Catholic Schools. He passed away on Sunday, January 19, after […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4,9],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/nccpantherprint.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4500"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/nccpantherprint.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/nccpantherprint.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nccpantherprint.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nccpantherprint.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4500"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/nccpantherprint.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4500\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4507,"href":"http:\/\/nccpantherprint.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4500\/revisions\/4507"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/nccpantherprint.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4500"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nccpantherprint.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4500"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nccpantherprint.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4500"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}