The wife of late NFL player Kasey Redfern made a somber revelation after his death at the age of 35 last week.
“He shouldn’t have lived as long as he did,” Lauryl Redfern told the New York Post on Friday, October 15. “But he fought an incredible fight. He smiled the whole way through, never questioned why and always knew God had a purpose for this, having great hope that his miracle would be healing on Earth.”
Kasey died Tuesday, October 13, after being diagnosed with a cancerous brain tumor and lymphoma in his brain in August 2023.
Post-diagnosis, Lauryl said her late husband “received many miracles from the Lord along the way.”
Lauryl and Kasey share two sons: Logan, 6, and Ollie, 4.
Kasey was a punter on seven NFL rosters — Jacksonville Jaguars, San Diego Chargers, Carolina Panthers, Cleveland Browns, Detroit Lions, Dallas Cowboys and Atlanta Falcons — over the span of his career from 2014 to 2019.
He saw regular season game action with the Lions and Falcons in 2017 and 2019, respectively.
Kasey was moved to hospice care on September 26, which also marked his 35th birthday.
“It’s been a whirlwind of a week — one that has been really hard and full of emotional and mental overwhelm,” Lauryl wrote via Facebook the following day. “Kasey had his appointment with Dr. Fanning on Wednesday and our conversation wasn’t easy. We’ve decided to move toward hospice care for Kasey.”
She continued, “It seems that everything he’s been experiencing over the last couple of weeks — the falls, extreme decline in short term memory, random throwing up, and some other things are likely due to cognitive decline caused by neurotoxicity from all of the treatments he’s had over the last 3.5 years. His poor brain has had all it can take treatment wise so we want to make sure that he can be as comfortable as possible.”
Lauryl admitted that her husband’s condition had made for “a really hard few weeks.”
“We know that healing will take place regardless of the outcome, but if he makes it to Heaven soon, he will have it better than the rest of us and for that all I can do is be thankful and joyful and filled with peace (and a lot of jealousy) that He will be WHOLE and in glory with our Savior — the best place we could ask to be,” she concluded her post.
A GoFundMe arranged in Kasey’s honor has raised over $53,000 at the time of this story’s publication.
