The late Uzziah Shell, as shown in a photo shared by family members at Saturday's funeral.
Friends wore shirts that read Forever 16 with a photo of Uzziah Shell. Ushers handed out tissues to grieving classmates. Mothers wrapped their arms tightly around their kids. A portrait of Uzziah holding a sign reading “I’m Thankful For” and adorned with colored Post-Its smiled from the altar.
That was the scene on Saturday at Life-Giving Water Church on Howard Avenue, where a packed house of friends, family, and city leaders gathered to celebrate the life of Shell, the 16-year-old Riverside Academy student who was shot and killed on Goffe Street late last month.
Saturday’s funeral took place roughly three weeks after Shell’s homicide on Nov. 22, and just four days after his friend and Riverside Academy classmate, 17-year-old Daily Jackson, was shot dead in Newhallville — leaving police concerned about potential acts of retaliation among feuding youth crews in town.
He was a jokester, Uzziah’s older sister Aniqua Booker said about her late brother on Saturday. He loved chasing his younger siblings around the house, riding dirt bikes, and listening to music. He was a participant in the Youth@Work program, where he painted fire hydrants, and the LEAP program. He was “a bright and promising young man known for his kindness and enthusiasm.”
She talked about his favorite meal, “seafood and cheeseburger,” his infectious smile, and his eye for fashion — particularly Time A Tell clothing on Dixwell Avenue in Hamden, where he was a regular. In a text to his mother in late October, Uzziah wrote about a diamond-studded sweat suit he had seen there. Owner Josh McCown gifted his mother the custom suit. “That’s what he’s going home in,” Booker said.
Booker appealed to the young people to “do what Uzziah was unable to, make sure you guys graduate, please make sure it is a priority in your lives and just push through.”
Pastor William Mathis drew lessons from Uzziah in the Book of Isaiah. “It wasn’t until Uzziah died that Isaiah was released into his greatness,” he said, with echoes of Ventresca Carter’s stirring rendition of the gospel hymn “His Eye Is on the Sparrow” floating in the air. “Let this experience lead you to something greater. Choose to move forward and not backward.”
“Remember, Uzziah did not become king until he was 16 years old,” he went on. “I think it’s right for us to be mad, to be frustrated, to be outraged, that we are funeralizing a 16-year-old boy, but I come to tell you in addition that he has become king.”
He pointed at the casket. “This is only the shell,” he said. “If you came here looking for Uzziah, just look around, look at the person next to you, at the person behind you. That’s Uzziah. How we choose to engage is how strong King Uzziah will be.”
Fittingly, perhaps, the service closed with a letter from one of Uzziah’s younger sisters. Booker, his older sister, read it aloud. “I came up to say that my brother Uzziah was one of the best big brothers you could ever have,” she read, as a sob escaped from the congregation. “Uzziah wanted to give us the world and didn’t have time to, and that sums up the type of person he was.”