A letter to all;

With the intent of sharing from the heart; it is broken. Broken for us and for you and your generation. It is a sad time for the Carei/Martinez family, the Colorado Mesa University (CMU) community and for Grand Junction as a whole.

For those in attendance at either vigil, the one at the Center for Reflection or at the quad, thank you, and thank you. The healing power of friendship is a powerful thing I assure you. We especially appreciate those roommates and friends who took the time after the vigil to spend time with Jared’s dad Augie — Jared’s middle name is Augustine, for those who did not know. That time spent is irreplaceable for healing.

Thank you for your friendships and for who you were to Jared, as well for allowing him to be who he was to you. For those who knew him know well, he had an idea a minute. There was always some “business” opportunity in any situation. But within that opportunity, there was the opportunity to create friendships and lasting relationships. Jared touched people, sincerely and with heart.

Were we there because some misguided 18 year old, filled with bravado and hate felt compelled to randomly shoot into a crowd and kill Jared? Or would we say we were there because someone we knew touched us in a way that made us want to stand with unity and love? Jared would choose the latter.

Is it a tragic end to the story of a life lived well, but short? Or is it a new beginning of an eternal life promised through grace, one that has placed Jared with a renewed relationship with his mother — her life too, taken from this world earlier than most? Jared would want you to believe and to live life trusting that he has arrived at this renewed, yet new beginning.

If you knew Jared you know he loved cars. Fast cars; the more exotic the better. Ferraris, Lamborghinis , Bugattis. He could tell you not only how many cylinders, he could tell you what color they came out with, standard or optional. And on the super cars say $500k and up, for those, he could tell you how many were made, and tell you the zero to sixty times and the potential horsepower.

Potential. When thought about it, what an overwhelming and formidable concept potential is; that of idle possibility amassing energy waiting to be unleashed and made actual. With a nod to his love of cars — fast cars, it seems only right to use a metaphor of the Ferrari Enzo to talk about it.

With the potential of 660 horsepower, 48-valve V12 engine with a redline of nearly 9,000 RPM, the Enzo doesn’t sport a clutch because it would fly apart. It’s built like an F1 race car — paddle shift and all. It is awesome.

For those who this means nothing, Google it, listen to its energy; it is a massive symphony of mechanical potential. With one horsepower being the energy it takes to lift 550 pounds off the ground one foot, the potential of is to lift 363,000 pounds. Immense and awesome as is your potential.

Each one of you possesses within you great potential, your own unrealized ability, your own “Enzo” if you will. But this potential, without the road to run it down, is only that. To put it to work, you need a destination and a trajectory that aligns with that power.

If not, you have what Jared was experiencing the last few years. Having the power of massive potential, but fighting the switchback and the hairpins of life, trying to go full throttle down the mountain, pushing the limits of a 35 mph, mountain hairpin by doing 90. Barely able to keep the back end from coming around, having to work the paddle, throttle and the steering wheel all with excessive energy and effort.

Only by the grace of God, the love of family and friends was he able to keep himself on the road! This, we are sure, is a feeling you all are experiencing.

Then — and this we strongly believe — just as he had finally rounded the last S curve, moving into the last banked mountain sweeper approaching the long downhill straightaway; just when he was ready to take full advantage of the horsepower he had, fueled only by his vast potential; just, just, just as he was approaching top speed and hurtling towards the destination and destiny each of us have within… to be wiped out by a random act of violence! To be senselessly robbed of finally converting the chaotic power of potential into that which we all seek — purpose.

Each and every one of you have been given gifts and talents to take on something. It is within each of you right now. You are brimming with potential energy longing to be converted into your purpose. The purpose written in your heart — whether it has revealed itself to you now or not.

We beseech and implore you to remember this, you, the Ferrari Enzos of the world. When you have just uncovered your point of purpose, ready to convert the potential you have been carrying your entire life, traveling through the inflection point between initiation and implementation, between learning and living, and between thinking and doing. If you feel the slightest hesitation, we ask you to flash on the question (with no disrespect to Christian theology): WWJD — what would Jared do!?

We say then, you romp on that throttle putting the pedal to the medal. This to muster all the horsepower of your individual potential and hurtle into your own personal purpose with headstrong abandon. If not for yourself, then for Jared. And if not for Jared, for all those who like him whose lives were cut short at just that very moment that potential was to manifest into purpose! It’s there, in that moment, you will live into the purpose that only you can own.

We are sorry for your loss, our loss and we thank you again for being a part of who Jared was and is.

With love, appreciation and anticipation,

Forever in friendship,

The Carei/Martinez Family