Excerpt from Alex Ullman’s Speech at Justin’s funeral…It is a very hot day for baseball. Justin owned the mound that day with a coolness that settled us. His dark brown hair stuck to the sweat on his forehead, and an intelligent smirk beamed across his face. He stood about 5’4″ tall for his age. The setting is an old softball field at a summer camp in upstate Maine. There was no crowd, the counselor played catcher, and everyone smiled because Justin, without knowing it had his shirt on inside our and back wards. In spite of his goofy appearance, he remained as serious as ever. he glared straight back at the batter; Justin tossed a pitch straight into the outside corner. It didn’t have much speed but the accuracy more than overwhelmed the batter, who swung and missed for strike three. We won!
From Jillian Blose and Jill Kellog... we have felt so blessed that we knew Justin for as long as we did. Justin brought so much joy and laughter into our lives; our senior year would have been so dull without him.
From his cousin Andrew Sheftel…Justin is gone, our family is devastated, the young driver will be haunted for the rest of his life and I will continue to miss and grieve over the loss of a terrific young man; all so unnecessary.
From one of his teachers…He had the ability to make everyone around him comfortable and upbeat, second his work ethic was second to none. It almost goes without saying that his quick dry wit was also very special.
A dear friend…The great relationship between Justin and me was stronger than friends. I feel like a part of myself is lost. His interests, passions, hobbies, humor and love will always be remembered which is something on one can take away.
Excerpt from Josh Hermann’s speech at Justin’s funeral…the last of many traits that I’m going to name which Justin carried with him was his kindness and generosity. We are all here this morning because Justin had an impact on all of us. All his qualities added together to create a great guy, a loved family member, but to me most importantly an extravagant best friend. Thank you Shef for everything you could have ever done.