Instead

Jacob,

You were born in unusual circumstances. Instead of being born in a local hospital in Houston, TX, you were born over a thousand miles away in Philadelphia, PA, making you our token “Yankee”.

Instead of being delivered by a doctor who had followed your development throughout the nine months and in whom your mother had built a strong sense of trust, we met your assigned delivery doctor minutes before the procedure that brought you into the world in a strange hospital we had never been in before.

Instead of being swaddled and given to your mother for a ‘golden hour’, after a brief introduction to your parents, you were quickly whisked away to be surrounded by machines and attentive nurses. Your mom and I could only see you and hold you for minutes at a time while medicines ‘fooled’ your body into thinking you were still in a safe, loving womb as you awaited your first open heart surgery five days later.

Instead of going home after a few days after your birth, you endured your first of many open heart surgeries and stayed in a hospital for several weeks to see if you would survive and thrive … which you did!

Instead of a hospital room that resembled a living room with a comfortable hospital bed, your mom was given  a spartan room about the size of a walk-in closet and a bathroom that was down the hall, while you were stationed in a ward wing with five other sick children in a separate hospital.

Instead of a steady stream of friends and family coming through our Houston home to welcome you and coo over you, you were cocooned in isolation, partly out of fear of infection and partly out of fear that anybody who held you would ‘break’ your fragile body.

Instead of a normal childhood immersed in sports and playing outside in the rain and mud, you took countless trips to doctors and hospitals …. Yet you did it with a smile and brought smiles to all who attended to you.

Instead of spending a ton of money to go to the prom in a fancy tux like every other of your high school friends, you spent your junior year struggling to live and then experienced a life giving heart transplant.  And because of that, you got to do something none of your high school friends would ever do – spend a day fixing a meal with Paula Deen!

Instead of a celebratory college graduation with your friends and sharing plans and fears of future careers with each other, your mother and father walked  across the stage to receive your honorary diploma presented by Shorter College posthumously.  Our tears were flowing for a different reason than the scores of parents elsewhere in that gym.

And you were cheated out of a long and happy life …. But you packed a long lifetime of happy into your 21 years of challenges.

Happy woulda been 31st birthday, Jacob!

Love you and miss you ... everyday,

 Mom & Dad