JUPITER FARMS — Jade North told her mother “I love you” before ending their phone call ahead of a back-to-school shopping trip with her grandmother.
It was something the mother-daughter duo would tell each other all the time. Juanita North had no idea she was hearing it for the last time from her 16-year-old daughter in that Saturday, Aug. 2 phone call. Jade died in a car crash shortly after.
Police say the SUV her grandmother Deidre North drove ran a stop sign and collided with a pickup truck at the intersection of Alexander Run and Randolph Siding Road in Jupiter Farms at about 4:30 p.m. Deidre North, 77, died at the scene and Jade North died at about 6 p.m. at a local hospital.
“She would walk into a room and just light up everybody’s life,” Juanita North said. “She was an advocate for no cruelty, no bullying and she was very spiritual. She’s my angel.”
Candles, prayers and sunflower bouquets at Jupiter Farms vigil
About 200 people gathered Wednesday, Aug. 6 at the scene of the crash for a sunset vigil that honored Jade and Deidre North with candles, prayers and bouquets — many of them made of sunflowers. An online fundraiser has raised more than $25,000 to help the family cover funeral costs.
Teenagers who were friends with Jade attended, many wailing and hugging each other so tightly that they rocked back and forth. Some neighbors walked from their homes with their dogs to the vigil. Palm Beach County firefighters and police officers closed down the part of the street where people cried under the warm candlelight.
Juanita North said her daughter was a talented artist with a radiant smile and a goofy attitude.
She stood alongside any of her peers who were bullied at Jupiter High School and walked with them to class. She would have started 11th grade at the school next week. The school will offer grief counseling to any student wishing to talk and grieve.
Jade was best friends with her 19-year-old brother, Dristin. She was also close with her grandmother, who lived five houses away. They loved to cook and try new recipes together.
“Mimi was a great grandmother,” Juanita North said. “She was always there when we needed her.”
Juanita North says she doesn’t think Deidre North skipped the stop sign. She approached the intersection often in the 20 years she lived in Jupiter Farms. Juanita North wants it to be made a four-way stop and also wants foliage around a nearby caution light that says “stop ahead” to get cleaned up. She said the foliage is so thick that drivers can’t see it.
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Brian North, Jade’s uncle from Dothan, Alabama, led the vigil in a prayer about hope amid loss and sorrow. Everyone bowed their heads along with him.
“We don’t understand everything that goes on around us,” North said during the prayer. “Give us strength to get through these days. Help us to smile and remember the good. Help us to live each day as if it was our last.”
Lauren Dowd-Shedlock knew Jade since she was 3 years old. Dowd-Shedlock knew her parents because they were fellow members of the Elks Lodge in Jupiter Farms.
One of her favorite memories with Jade was how excited Jade was to wear an apron at her 10th birthday party at California Pizza Kitchen. And she remembers her knack for painting: Jade just recently completed a mural of an octopus on a bedroom wall.
“She and my niece grew up together,” said Dowd-Shedlock, who lives in Jupiter Farms and helped organize the vigil. “Jade was beautiful, artistic, talented, smart and she would light up a room.”
Maya Washburn covers northern Palm Beach County for The Palm Beach Post, part of the USA TODAY Florida-Network. Reach her at mwashburn@pbpost.com. Support local journalism: Subscribe today.
This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Candlelight vigil brings hundreds: Family, friends mourn two killed in Jupiter Farms crash
Reporting by Maya Washburn, Palm Beach Post / Palm Beach Post
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