TUPELO – Not many people can say exactly where they were and what they were doing mid-afternoon on July 17, 2009.

J.J. Jasper can. That’s the day the American Family Radio personality and his 5-year-old son, Cooper, were riding in their two-seater go-kart, doing a donut as they’d done countless times before. This time, the vehicle flipped and broke Cooper’s neck, even though the boy was strapped in.

Cooper Jasper seemed to be a special child from the beginning.

“He was born smiling, we used to say, and it’s very nearly true,” Jasper writes. “He rarely got upset. He was never in a bad mood.” Every boy in his pre-K class claimed Cooper as best friend.

The journey Jasper and his wife, Melanie, and their daughters Lauren, Sadie and Maddie went through after Cooper’s death is the impetus for a new book, “Losing Cooper: Finding Hope to Grieve Well.”

Source: Errol Castens, djournal.com