AJ’s Story…

AJ Holzscheiter was born September 20, 2000, in St. Albans, Vermont.

He grew up in a loving family in a tight-knit community, and he was tremendously full of life, packing action and joy into every Vermont season. In the spring, he played lacrosse. In the summer, he fished, boated, enjoyed Lake Champlain and cruised the backroads in his beloved Jeep, Ruby.  In the fall, he hunted and played soccer. And in the winter, he lived his greatest passion: alpine skiing.

AJ was a very gifted athlete. In soccer, in lacrosse or on the ski slopes, he wasn’t just another teammate. When he was out there, everyone knew it: both because of his talent, and because he played hard.

As a testament to how fully he threw his body into things, he broke his wrist playing goalie in soccer, broke his collar bone at Jay Peak’s Terrain Park, and scored two goals with a broken toe in his last soccer game as a high school freshman. More significantly, for the last 2.5 years of his life, he battled two ACL injuries to his left knee.

For AJ, pushing himself hard was what it meant to live life to the fullest. But the other side of  that coin – the injuries – are also what led to him taking his life on November 30, 2018, not long after his 18th birthday. 

The two ACL injuries sidelined him completely. He missed his entire sophomore and junior years of soccer, skiing and lacrosse, which was an absolute blow to everything he was about. Things changed socially for AJ as well, as the bonds with his teammates and friends shifted. But through it all, AJ attended practices and games, and assisted the coaches while working through his injuries. And he worked just as hard in rehab as he had on the field, pushing himself to overcome his injuries, with one goal in mind: to ski again.  

At the end of August 2018, AJ’s doctor cleared him to try out for his senior year on the BFA Varsity Soccer Team. He hadn’t played, run or kicked a soccer ball since he was a freshman. He desperately wanted to get back out there and prove he still had what it took to be a star.

But he really struggled. His brace didn’t fit right and chafed his leg, and he was upset with himself for being out of practice. He was very, very frustrated. One afternoon after practice, he said he was going to quit and that he was done, and he broke down in tears. His parents had never seen him this emotionally distraught. He trembled, and he struggled to speak.  

“My knee just doesn’t feel right,” he said. “I don’t think I’ll ever be able to do sports again. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to ski again.”

His dad, who had experienced several knee injuries of his own, understood how AJ was feeling and tried to counsel him. “AJ, your knee will never feel the same as it was. You are more than likely not going be the star scorer on the team, but you can still get out there, enjoy the game, and contribute to the team. You’re going to have to figure out how to play at half-throttle and ease back into things.”

He said, “Dad, I don’t know how to do that.”  

AJ ended up continuing with pre-season and making the soccer team. He went to every practice and every game.  But he chose not to play in any games other than his Senior Night Game for just a short 10 minutes at the end, so as not to jeopardize his ski season. 

On Tuesday, November 27, Vermont got a substantial snowstorm, and Jay Peak was set to open that weekend. That afternoon, AJ put his skis on for the first time in two years and swooshed around the backyard to see how they felt. He was incredibly excited.

But just two days later, on Thursday, November 29, 2018, while playing broomball during gym class, AJ fell hard on the ice, landing on his knees.

He took his life that night.

Months later, AJ’s family learned through the Organ and Tissue Donor Program that AJ had, in fact, severely re-injured his knee the day he died. His family assumes that AJ knew instantly what had happened and that he had blown his ACL for a third time. But he chose not to tell anyone, or to share what had happened. He kept it all inside. He went to bed that night, alone, dealing with the reality that his body had failed him yet again.

We’ll never know what AJ might have done with his life. That’s true of every person who dies from suicide – more than 44,000 people every year in the United States – and that is certainly a fact worth grieving. 

In this shared human experience, no one is ever truly alone in feeling grief and loss, be it from the death of a loved one or a devastating, career-ending injury. But when they are in the middle of it, it can seem nearly impossible to see past the trials of today.

Afterglow’s mission is to make sure that anyone who finds themselves in AJ’s position – seemingly at the end of the road – is able to embrace the fact that there is no shame in asking for help, and is able to find that help from family and friends in their community.