Just a month ago she narrowly escaped a mass shooting in Toronto. An experience she blogged about:
She wrote that at 6:20 p.m., she bought a burger but instead of sitting down to eat it at the Eaton Centre food court, she went outside to get some fresh air.
"The gunshots rung out at 6:23," she wrote. "Had I not gone outside, I would've been in the midst of gunfire."
"I was shown how fragile life was on Saturday," Jessica wrote. "I saw the terror on bystanders' faces. I saw the victims of a senseless crime. I saw lives change. I was reminded that we don't know when or where our time on Earth will end. When or where we will breathe our last breath."
Jessica’s brother Jordan wants her and the other victims to be known and their lives to be celebrated. He wants people to know the kind of person his sister was and what better way to do that than to make her our AWOD.
While studying at The University of Texas at San Antonio, Ghawi interned at Ticket 760 Radio and KABB-TV, where her bubbly personality and ambition made her an indispensable member of both teams. Another internship would take her from San Antonio to Denver, where Ghawi joined the staff at Sports Radio 104.3 The Fan. An avid hockey fan, Ghawi was excited to cover The Colorado Avalanche for the station.
She used the pen name Redfield in honor of her grandmother, who always wanted to be a journalist, but "never had the chance," she once shared.
Peter Burns, morning show host of Denver's Mile High Sports, described Jessica as a "vibrant and full of life." She was a die-hard hockey fan. Burns said she dreamed of starting a charity to help the victims of the Colorado wildfires." Even if she could just help three or four families, that would have been great. That was the kind of person she was," he said.
Jessica’s brother Jordan Ghawi wants to move the focus from the tragedy to Jessica's life.
In his words “My sister is a fighter... she's listened to her heart, I want people to remember that heart and remember the good things that she's done; remember that smile and what her possibilities, what her prospectives, what she could have done in the future.
So here is to Jessica Ghawi, she will not be forgotten.
