Kim Hassell has to pause to hold back the tears, because the memory of her son’s words that day are words a mother can never forget when her heart is pierced as it was, even 20 years later.
The boy was in kindergarten when he hit him, and he hit him terribly hard, that no one else had a left hand that looked like his, a little hand that was deformed at birth with only the appearance of a little finger and a inch maybe an inch in size, center of hand bent. And he turned to his mother that day at their home in Titusville, Florida, and said,
‘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, maybe I can be just like anyone else. “
The boy remembers. Of course he does.
“Just being around other kids and seeing how happy they are all the time, and then being able to do things with both hands on a daily basis, I didn’t understand why I was different,” JT Hassell told The Post after Jets training. on Wednesday. “I started to hate myself in a way and hated the way I was born.”
On this Christmas Day, Hassell can look back on a remarkable journey that somehow took him to the Jets. They somehow became the 1-13 Jets the day he made his debut with the team, blocking a kick that landed a field goal in the Rams’ 23-20 attack, barring a miracle, and Trevor Lawrence will send to the Jaguars.
Hassell can now look in the mirror and see an inspiration not only for his mother, but for anyone with a disability, for anyone forced to put up with the cruel slings and arrows of petty bullies, for anyone who has a best friend lost to gun violence, to anyone who grew up in a single mother, to anyone looking for a father figure, to anyone who refuses to take no and can write a story about the triumph of the human spirit.
He can smile through the ups and downs of a life and the precarious NFL career he dreamed of as a boy, now that he believes God never hated him, but always loved him.
“If I’m on the phone with you in this situation right now, it’s all God,” Hassell said. ‘I don’t even know how I do it sometimes. I am the type of person I need to find. Sometimes it can be like there is no way for me or there is no possibility for me for some reasons, but I just have to go and make a way. “
A way to make tackles with gloves his mom sewed. One way to lift weights on its Pro Day. One way to move from the state of South Dakota to Florida Tech, to become an undeveloped free agent, to play four games safe and on special teams with the 2019 Browns, to spend a few days on the exhibition squad of to the Patriots, to the Jets.
“I’m grateful for all the things I go through because it helps me help others,” Hassell said. “A lot of people come to me for help and motivation and just want to tell me about themselves because they know like I’ve been there. They see a smile on my face every day no matter what I’m going through. To show them the strength, the courage and the passion that I have in my life every day, whatever I go through, is that someone you want to be with and someone who motivates you to live a happy life. “
They say it sometimes takes a village.
“The teachers wouldn’t let people make fun of him,” said Kim Hassell. “They wouldn’t let him treat him differently.”
She worked three jobs to make ends meet, and drove a school bus for the Brevard County school board for 19 years. She never missed JT’s high school games, first at Titusville HS, then at Astronaut HS. And she only missed one game at Florida Tech, an hour from her home, because of an approaching hurricane.
“I am the mother who is always there,” said Kim. “I was going to donate my plasma, and I was going to save my off-season money on my plasma card so I could travel to go to his college games.”
She offered to have a prosthesis made for him when he was about 10, but JT declined.
“I want to be like God made me,” he said.
She is one of the biggest motivations in his life, along with his son Cameron, who turns 7 in February. She and a small group of family erupted when he blocked that punt against the Rams.
“We got out of our seats and everyone gets up screaming!” Kim said.
She knew exactly what living this NFL dream meant to him.
“It is very heartening for me to see that he can achieve a life purpose that he has created,” said Kim. “He would be the first to practice, and the last to leave during practice. On the weekends, kids sleep in – not my son. Six in the morning: ‘Can you take me to the gym? ‘”
“Before that game happened,” said JT, “I was literally talking to my teammates on the sidelines, I was like, ‘I can’t believe I’m on the sidelines playing in this game right now.’ I was literally just at my mother’s place.
“And then I went to block the stairs, and it gave me so much joy for me and my teammates.”
He only wishes Johntay Gowdie could have shared it with him too.
“My best friend got shot in the head when I was younger, he was like a good brother to me, we grew up playing football. I still think about that every day, ”JT said.
He is proud of himself today, and deserves to be, and has written a book about his 25-year life.
“Even outside of the hand situation, I’ve been through so much in my life,” Hassell said. “Whatever I go through, I just keep going. … I am more proud than anyone. I am my biggest fan. Everyone doesn’t know what I’ve been through or how difficult it is to get to this point in my life. “
He got there against all odds. “Now that I’m here,” said JT Hassell, “it really is a dream come true.”
A dream Christmas.