Waterford — You could ask just about anyone who knew Deion Anthony Pittman and they’d tell you the same thing: Pittman lived with more verve in 22 years than most do in a lifetime.

Small for his age, Deion made up for it with a big personality: vibrant bowties, hot pink shirts, dreadlocks, an “infectious smile.”

The youngest of three brothers, “he was going to make sure you knew him,” said his dad, Michael.

Recently baptized, Deion used time off from his two jobs to work with his church: he’d help during Sunday services, organize games during church outings and act as a big brother to those who needed guidance.

For those reasons and more, Michael and Deion’s mom, Taeza, look back and find joy in the 22 years they spent with Deion before a March 30 crash in Groton took his life.

“He arrived two weeks early and I don’t think he slowed down after that,” Taeza said of her youngest son, who stood still only when he slept — and he slept hard.

“He was always going,” Michael agreed. “Twenty-two years may not seem long, but it’s how you live within those 22 years.”

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Michael and Taeza don’t harbor any anger toward the driver whose actions resulted in the death of their son.

According to police, Pittman died from injuries he sustained when Valery Labossiere, 27, of Medford, Mass., drove a stolen pickup truck through a red light and into the passenger side of a Mitsubishi Eclipse, where Pittman was seated.

Taylor Wilkinson, the 20-year-old driver of the Mitsubishi whom Pittman’s parents described as his on-again, off-again girlfriend, sustained injuries that weren’t life-threatening. Labossiere is facing several charges in relation to the crash.

“There’s no reason to be angry because it changes nothing,” Michael said. “It won't bring Deion back. All it would do is eat you up.”

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Instead the two have spent their time recounting memories with countless drop-in visitors. They’ve learned things they didn’t know about Deion, too.

Strikingly, some of that new knowledge came from a scrapbook that has been lying around the Pittmans’ Miner Avenue home since Deion graduated from Waterford High School in 2013.

Inside, Michael and Taeza found Deion had listed the "five things I’ve learned.”

No. 3 gave them pause.

“No day is guaranteed,” it read. “There are so many horrible things going on in the world, I could be gone at any point. I try and live every day to the fullest and get the most out of life.”

“He was wiser in life than we thought he was,” Michael said.

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Deion had such a way about him that different people he impacted in life, without conferring, would come to the same conclusion: “That’s just Deion being Deion.”

“You could tell him to do something and he’d say, ‘Oh yeah, I’ll do that,’ and then go do it his way,” Michael said. “That was quintessential Deion.”

Told he couldn’t get a tattoo until he was 18, Deion listened — “he never disrespected us,” Taeza said.

But then he got “the most Deion tattoo ever”: two elaborate wings spanning the bulk of his back.

“I’m at work and I get this text like, ‘Mom, do you want to see it, or not want to know about it?’” Taeza said with a chuckle. “And I said, ‘I have to admit: It’s you.’”

Deion did the same thing when his parents said he couldn’t get a motorcycle until he was 21.

“As a parent you want to put bubble wrap on and protect your kids from everything, but in hindsight we’re just so thankful he did everything he wanted to do,” Taeza said. “The things I wanted to protect him from, none of that had anything to do with” how he died.

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In a similar vein, Deion, who wasn’t necessarily cut out for college despite good SAT scores, gave it a try anyway because his parents wanted him to.

He excelled socially while he was away at Hofstra University. Academically? Not so much.

Deion returned home after his freshman year, where he began working two jobs — one at Cold Stone Creamery, the other at Jersey Mike’s — and recently passed the physical and written tests to become a police officer.

That he passed the physical exam, Michael said, is somewhat remarkable. His jaw had been wired shut for six of the seven weeks leading up to it — he was injured while playing flag football — and his liquid diet had left him down 20 pounds.

“Like most parents, we were trying to get our kid to go along with what is the 'norm,'” Michael said, adding that they thought Deion was wasting his time. “He was never wasting time. He just made sure his time was his time.”

“He had figured out what he wanted to do,” Taeza added. “It just wasn’t necessarily what we picked for him.”

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Deion spent as much time as he could hanging out with his brothers Darien, 24, and Aaron, 25.

He began coaching in the Waterford Youth Football league for which he used to play, too.

Deion brought passion and energy when he navigated the field as a quarterback and occasional kicker, league Football Manager Chris Muckle said. So when Deion asked to help out with coaching about three years ago, Muckle was thrilled.

“I’ve always told the kids, at some point, give back to those who gave to you,” Muckle said. “Deion had a full grasp of that.”

The kids, Muckle said, “loved him.”

“Most guys come back because they have kids in the league," he said, but not Deion. "You like to build around people like that. They’re there because they want to be.”

As Deion worked his way around the region, families — some of whom Michael and Taeza don’t even know — accepted Deion as their own.

One of those families was that of Kenneth McBryde, pastor of Christ Church of God & Family Center, where Deion and his family worshipped.

“He’s been in our house on a constant basis,” McBryde said.

Sometimes he’d walk their dog, or help cook a meal. Other times he’d just hang out. If you asked Deion for help, McBryde said, he’d never say no.

“He loved people and people loved him,” McBryde said. “You couldn’t ask for a better young man.”

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As he reflects, Michael said he is most happy his job at the time — photography — allowed him to spend daytime hours watching Blue Clues and the like with Deion in his youth.

Taeza is happy for all the times Deion made her laugh, including when she came home to find three blades on her ceiling fan because the boys — her husband included — had been playing baseball in the house.

“You couldn’t even stay mad about it,” she said, laughing.

Going forward, the two want to continue remembering the good Deion brought to their lives.

“Life is promised to no one, just like Deion figured out,” Michael said. “If we think about the things he’ll never do, we will forget the things he did.”

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l.boyle@theday.com