Covering a Community Tragedy

This story was originally published in the Transcript on Feb. 26, 2004. It is republished here with permission.

While Jozlyn Faye Brown will always be remembered by all who loved her for many reasons, no one will ever forget the beauty of her bright blue eyes.

Those blue eyes, smiling back from pictures family and friends treasure as a lasting token of her presence on Earth, are a reminder of a life ended too early due to a fatal car accident at Summit Bridge Feb. 17 — the day after her 17th birthday.

She died the way she lived her life, dedicated to her schoolwork — perishing while on her way to People's Plaza in Newark to buy film for a photography class, just one of the art classes at Middletown High School she was passionate about.

Her art teachers Brian Miller and Jayne Ribbett went to Jozlyn's viewing Feb. 21.

"She had so much good about her," Ribbett said. She taught her for four years. "I watched her grow up. She was just a really good person."

Jozlyn was inducted into the National Honor Society in October 2003. Her last report card, dated Feb. 11, showed her excellent grades — 3.9986 for the semester.
She also participated in the Pop Warner MOT Championship Dance Squad, Blue and Gold Special Olympic Program, Student Council, Art Club, Environmental Club, Freshman Field Hockey Team, Interact Club, Powerline Youth Ministries, Girls Only Bible Study, and many other activities throughout her cut-short life.

Jozlyn would get upset if she ever missed her Bible study, attending with her best friend Amanda Hash, who introduced her to the Praise Assembly of God Church, where Ben Rivera is the pastor; the church that after a long search to find her religious home, she loved to attend.

Hash had known Jozlyn for six years. They would attend sleepovers, go to movies, and listen to music together. It was difficult for Hash to go back to school this past Monday, but she went for part of the day.

"A lot of people come up and give me hugs," she said. She now spends all her free time at Jozlyn's home, bonding with her family.

Jozlyn would be one of the first students to school every day, beating even most of the teachers there. She was a known presence at the school, taking care of everyone around her, from fellow students, to teachers.

It was at a school event, the first Middletown High School football game of that season two years ago, where she met the love of her life, Wesley Tribbit. Then a freshman, Jozlyn was at the game where Wes, then a junior and a football player, saw some people fighting. He went over to break up the fight and not wanting to get his jersey dirty, took it off — and Jozlyn asked him if he wanted her to hold it. He looked at her.

"Her eyes were so captivating," Wes said. "That's what got me."

Together ever since, they talked of marriage and their future together. He had given her a ring he now wears on his own gold chain, and fingers it gently often while he talks.

"It is the 'I-love-Jozlyn ring'," Wes said. "She's my angel. I always called her my angel.

"She was the love of my life," he tearingly said. It was Joz who helped him bring his grades up, helped him stop smoking. "She was my life."

When they'd go out for dinner, she'd always order the same thing no matter where they went to eat — chicken fingers.

A red-flowered, heart-shaped framed picture of the happy couple at his senior prom last year sits on the kitchen table. He has a hard time keeping his eyes off of it.

At school, hundreds of students signed two large posters with messages for Jozlyn's family. Jozlyn's mom Shelly can't bring herself to read the messages yet, but will someday.

But she has read Wes' message to her daughter. In red ink, with a circle around it, Wes wrote "Hey Babe, Don't worry it's not your fault. I will need your help forever. I love you and never forget it. I will see you in a few years — please wait for me. I love you." And then he signed his name.

Right from day one, back on Feb. 16, 1987, Jozlyn, a Connecticut native, was "fiercely independent," said Mary Zuvic, Shelly's life partner. And after moving to Middletown in 1993, Jozlyn adapted well to her new community.

"Joz just immediately bonded with people," Zuric said. "It had to be those eyes."

On the first day of school every year, from the time she was a tot up to the start of her junior year this past fall, she and her brother would listen to the song "School Days" by Chuck Berry. They were not allowed to leave on the first day without listening to that song, a yearly tradition.

To friends and family, she was "Joz" or "Joz Faye," or simply "Faye" to her mom Shelly.

Jozlyn's brother Ryan, 17, a MHS senior, used to tease his sister, calling her "ocelot," among other nicknames. Jozlyn looked it up and found out an ocelot was an exotic cat, and never minded being called that by her brother again, and the purpose of him picking on her gone.

Ryan also recalled the time when he and Joz were younger and he flushed the leg of one of her Barbie dolls down the toilet and Joz was the one who ended up being grounded. Shelly and Ryan joke that Joz, after all these years, still wanted him to be grounded for the incident. They will now pick a day for him to be grounded in the future.

She loved listening to music, especially anything Christian inspired, or by artists like Sonic Flood, Elton John or Billy Joel. She loved Joel's song "My life."

Joz loved roller coasters and other fast rides, said Wes. Growing up, the family would spend lots of time at Great Adventure since they had season tickets. The kids, especially Jozlyn, had the layout of the park memorized, and would run around having fun, meeting back just in time at the fountain in the park.

In her free time, Jozlyn liked to read, reading almost every book the family owned, and watching medical shows on the Discovery Channel. She also loved to watch Trading Spaces. But no matter what was on TV, she was still in bed by 9:30 p.m. every night.

Her bed and the rest of her teddy bear-decorated room is still untouched, the way she left it the day she died, her flowered bedspread still strewn on the unmade gold-metal post bed.

Jozlyn used to relax by taking three tub baths a day. Soaking in the tub, any tub, at anyone's house, was her stress reliever and office in one, as she would talk on the phone, eat, and do homework — all from the bathtub.
"It was her quiet place," her father, Tim Currier, said. "She'd be in there for hours."

The family chose to have her buried in a white casket-the closest thing that looked like a tub, though Mary said they would have buried her in a tub if they had been allowed.

One treasured memory was when Jozlyn was around six years old and she was picked out of the crowd at a dolphin show at the park to help feed the dolphins. She never forgot the experience, and her family will never forget it either.

Family dog Sasha and cats Boyz and Rascal know the person who would pet them and let them sleep in her bed is gone. Even the furry creatures notice her bodily prescence is gone. But her spirit is still inside her Millbranch home.

On her 17th birthday, the day before her death, she had the day off from school-actually, she never had to go to school on her birthday. On this particular day, she spent two hours in the morning in the family's backyard hot tub with Mary, talking about life and her dreams and goals. After emerging and putting on their matching robes, they went inside to the breakfast Shelly made for them.

The house was decorated with a "Happy Birthday" banner they used for all the family birthdays. Shelly presented her daughter with a gray University of Delaware hoodie sweatshirt-the school Jozlyn hoped to attend one day.

After breakfast, wearing her new shirt, Shelly and Jozlyn went to Christiana Mall, where Jozlyn could pick out her own birthday gift, anything within reason, from clothes to CDs, as a gift from her parents. When they first entered the mall, her eyes caught on an outfit in the front of Strawbridge's-a pale pink outfit. But it was a color she hadn't worn since a child, so she moved on, saying they could come back if she didn't find anything else.

After wandering the entire mall, the mother-daughter team returned to Strawbridge's to purchase the pale pink lace-trimmed tank top for $12.99 and matching pale pink belted pants on sale for $24.99. The total cost of her final birthday gift-all she wanted when she could have had anything-was $37.98.

And the $37.98 outfit is now lying on the floor of her room, where she left it.

Well, actually, she wanted her belly button pierced too, but none of the shops they visited were open.

After the mall, the whole family and a few friends went out to KC's restaurant in Middletown, where they had a great meal and great conversation. After playing pool with Wes, where she "kicked my a** — she beat me twice," she announced she had to get home-on her birthday mind you-to do her homework. They returned to the house to eat her yellow birthday cake with white icing and chocolate chips Shelly made her, blowing out her 17 candles.

And it was the same UD sweatshirt she was wearing as she got into the car accident that took her life.
"She lived to be 17 for one day," said Shelly.

Currier will continue to pay the bill for Jozlyn's cell phone, so the family can call her number and still hear her voice say "Hey, it's Joz."

Middletown High School choral director Voni Perrine said, "it's just not fair-a parent should never lose a child. It's a sad event. You just want to hold your own child."

Shelly said everyone from Middletown High School, from students to principal Donna Mitchell, have been "over the top unbelievable.

"The school has been out of this world," Shelly said.

Mitchell said guidance counselors from throughout the Appoquinimink School District were at the school the day after Jozlyn's death, turning the auditorium into a collective place for the students and teachers to grieve for their friend, student, peer and the happy smiling face of the honor roll student.

Student clubs Jozlyn was devoted to made memorials in the glass cases throughout the school. Flowers poured into the school from other schools and districts, who themselves were also experiencing a week of grief as three other New Castle County teens lost their lives in car accidents.

The lilac-colored program from Jozlyn's funeral is adorned with a picture of her, smiling, from Wes' senior prom she attended with him last year, framed by two tulips, and a shiny ribbon. The program, put together by Wes, Amanda, and Jozlyn's aunt and uncle Stephanie and Phillip Cypher, included the following quote by William Smith: Love is not a matter of counting the years, it's making the years count.

Wes explained they picked the quote because it was pretty special and that was exactly how Jozlyn lived, "to make the years count."

It is her beautiful eyes that keep coming back into conversations about Jozlyn.

"There was nothing but love," said Mary. "The beauty of her eyes-it's what she saw through those eyes-she saw the beauty of everything-the Lord just shined through those eyes."

"She's keeping us all strong," said Wes. "I'll have to start a new life, because she was my life."

And to her family and friends, they all know Jozlyn Faye Brown will be watching over them from Heaven — looking down on them with her blue eyes.