I was with Jarrett's family for much of the day. His dad was telling me about how we, the friends he made through Smash, were honestly his closest friends, and one of the greatest joys in his life. He told me about how he was always so eager to go to every smashfest that was happening, and that playing Smash was one of the few things he happily talked about.
One of my fondest memories is way back in 2005, when we had Smash Thursdays at Devon's house after school. One particular day, Jarrod and Carl came over, and proceeded to trash us. I remember Jarrod never lost a game for the whole time we were playing. Jarrett was watching the whole time. He very timidly asked if he could play a round. We said sure, and he BEASTED Jarrod. He totally hardstyled on him from out of nowhere. We were all like waaaat.
After everyone else had left, having seen Carl do a super wavedash, he asked me how to do it. I explained that I sucked at it, and had to put in some input on some frame of a down+B (I think it's 43?) and demonstrated one after like 15 tries. He picks up the controller and does it after two. I stayed for a while to chat with Devon, and Jarrett just sat in front of the screen, practicing SWD the entire night in training mode. Just that image of him sitting there training gives me such feelings about his devotion to this game.
I'm gonna miss him a lot. I really wish that I could have understood him better.
