June 15th at 7:30 p.m.

It is hard to believe in two days it will be one year since the accident. Of course, all of us were sure Jess would be walking and talking by now. He will be in his own sweet time. I have been dreading the arrival of June 17th because it brings with it some horrible memories and a loss bigger than we could ever describe, but it also brings a thankfulness that we don't ever have to go through that day again.

I had a dream the other night that we should take Jess back to the accident site at 9:34 p.m. on the night of the anniversary of the accident. Maybe the part of Jess' spirit that we lost that night is waiting for him to return. Maybe if enough of us take a moment of silence at that time and say yet another prayer for our Jess, God and all the angels will help Jess remember how to communicate on this earthly physical plane again. Maybe, Jess will feel so much energy and love...he will find his way home. If you are in the area of Lower Broadford Road in Bellevue, please join us...or...just stop for a moment and say that little prayer for a boy that is missed and loved so much!

June 1st at 9:00 p.m.

Jess should be walking down the aisle to get his high school diploma right now. It has been a hard week for our family. We were all so looking forward to celebrating Jess' graduation. He only needed 5 credits to graduate. We keep asking why this has to happened to such a good person. Jess was so full of life and love and was looking forward to so many things in life. I guess we will never have those answers...we don't get many of our questions answered. We just get to wait and trust and try to stay positive.

Jess shut down for a couple of weeks. For some reason, maybe knowing it was his graduation, he just didn't want to respond to any of us. It had everyone worried. And then, this week he is back. On Monday he was moving on command a lot for Tami our physical therapist. John the occupational therapis got some good movement from his right arm (which we haven't seen for awhile) he also witnessed Jess controlling his head by using muscles we have been waiting to see wake up. He even had Jess kneeling vertically with support. John amazes us in how he can get Jess in so many different positions. And today at school the therapist were excited to see Jess repeatedly moving his left leg up and down triggering a switch to turn on his music. We have also been getting good consistent answers with his yes/no gaze board. So, we have faith...we will never lose faith.

Congratulations again to all of Jess friends who finally made it! We are proud of you all! Maybe you can come back next year and help Jess celebrate!

May 24th at 8:20 p.m.

We are still keeping Jess very busy. He handles it pretty well and stays awake now most of the day. He has a lot of therapies, rides the horse 2 days a week and goes to school 3 half days a week.

Joey is leaving in a couple of weeks to return to Minneapolis. We have enjoyed and appreciated his humor, his never complaining willingness to help, his sincere love for his little brother, his companionship for Jess at home, school and during horse therapy, his card playing with his grandparents, his picking me up and making me laugh and his constant love and attention to all of us. We will miss him terribly. Three months has gone way too fast.

What will we do now...everyone asks? We will continue to look for someone to help us this summer and the school is looking for a CNA to accompany Jess to summer school and to school next year. We are also trying to get a ceiling lift for the house so I can move Jess by myself. We just have to trust it will all work out.

School is almost over and graduation is next week. They have invited Jess , Chris and I to attend the celebration of the senior class graduating. We have decided to decline. It was a hard decision but we feel if Jess did understand that his class is graduating it could be very depressing for him. If he doesn't understand it would be too overwhelming for him to attend. And, Chris and know it would be extremely emotional for us. It is a day of celebration for his friends and we want them to indeed "Celebrate". Please be so careful...you are not invinceable and your life can change from having a great time to struggling to survive in an instant. We want to wish the entire graduating class of 2005 the best always! Know that Jess would give anything to be walking down that path with all of you. Here is one of his favorite sayings:

"Happiness is to be found along the way, not at the end of the road, for then the journey is over and it is too late. Today, this hour, this minute is the day, the hour the minute for each of us to sense the fact that life is good, with all of its trials and troubles, and perhaps...more interesing because of them." -Robert R. Updegraff (author of "Be Thankful for your Troubles")

I have so missed having 3 or 4 boys sleeping on Jess' floor 2 or 3 days a week this year. I have had kids in my house for 31 years now and I really miss them. Hopefully as Jess recovers a little more, his friends will be more comfortable to visit and spend time with him again. I'm sure he will look forward to hear about all he has missed.

May 17th, 9:30 p.m.

It has been eleven months today since Jess was hurt in the accident. I don't even know what to say tonight. We have come a long way...but just a short way on this road to his recovery. I know the only place to be is right here in the present and I really do try so hard to stay there. If I venture into the past I focus on the way things were and if I go into the future I ponder on the way things could be and not on the way things are. So, it is just another day in our journey. Jess is fine and he is going to continue to get a little better every day. And, we are going to keep praying.

Love to all...

May 9th at 3:20 p.m.

I hope everyone had a wonderful Mother's Day. I had all of my kids and my mom here with me. The only gift I did not receive was Jess saying "Hi Mom". I was hoping so much to hear those words.

He is doing well. Joey and I took him to the high school play "Guys and Dolls". He loved to help the drama class build the sets and seemed to know where he was in the auditorium and looked so intently at the lights, the audience and especially perked up when he heard his best friend, Curtis, singing. I know he missed being apart of the the gala event.

We have had to try a different way of riding at the horse arena. Charlie Brown got a little to "spunky" and worried everyone regarding Jess' safety so Charlie is in training right now. Jess has been riding another horse "Camo" but cannot have a back rider so we had to position Jess laying on his back on the horses back. Very interesting....but it works. Jess' neck is getting stronger and he turns it frequently left and right but he still cannot sit alone or hold his head up. We just need more time and patience on all our parts.

School is going well too. Jess goes 3 days a week from 12:30 to 4:30. He attends a fun class with a lot of his old friends or goes to his computer class, then 4 of his friends (Billy, Reno, Morgan and Dillon) meet with him and hang out discussing important issues I'm sure. At the end of the day he works out with the school speech and occupational therapists for an hour. He and Joey ride the bus home. We are hoping he will remember how much he didn't want to ride the bus and wanted to drive his own car. Stimulation is the key!

So, we are still hanging in there. Chris and I have our good positive days and are hard questioning days. We don't understand a lot of this whole journey. We miss our son and we want so much for him to be able to enjoy life, friends and family again. We will wait for how ever long it takes...what other choice do we have. Life is interesting, isn't it?

April 30th at 9:15 p.m.

We just finished free standing Jess and it is so amazing at the difference now and when we first returned home. He is doing so well and getting so much stronger. Today he pulled his head out of the head support on his wheelchair, kicked his left leg off the foot rest and lifted his left arm off of the arm rest. We have all decided we need to watch him much closer...we think he is moving to the next phase. The therapist have also noticed he is responding much quicker when they ask him to do something.

Daniel (our special friend who helps us with Jess on Thursdays) and his sweet wife, Wendy, took Jess to the movies for the first time today. We really do have some wonderful supportive people in our lives. It was strange for Chris and I, but we did take advantage and went for an hour hike. We both made a point, standing on the top of a mountain...which always makes me feel a little closer to God... to say "another" prayer... not only for our Jess but for our strength too. We prayed for Jess' ability to walk, run, laugh, talk, cry and smile again. Oh how we miss his smile. Joey played cards with the grandparents and when we got home were remarking how we all were a little uncomfortable without the need to check on our Jess. We missed him. One or all of us always has an eye on him.

We are still in awe with the love surrounding us and we continue to thank those we know and those we don't for all the prayers and continued positive reinforcement we get that Jess will get better. A special thanks to Daniel, John, Tami, Joan, Beth, Gordon, Susan, Maura, Mr. Murphy, Ms. Patzer, Billy, Dillon, Morgan and Reno...you are awesome. And, also, to our special volunteers who are so dedicated in helping Jess twice a week with horse riding. I might mention the Sagebrush Arena is always looking for volunteers and Jess will need more when he starts to ride three time a week this summer. You must be comfortable around horses. Give Wendy Collins a call if you have an hour of time to donate.

April 23rd at 9:45 a.m.

It’s finally the weekend! We have been so busy that we forgot to update the website to let everyone else know what is going on in our lives. It has been many months since I’ve given the update, my Mom usually does it. I have been here for the last 5 weeks participating in the care and recovery of Jess. There are many new things that have happened since I’ve been here. One significant change is Jess got a new wheelchair, which seems to be helping with his "tone" (abnormal adrenaline to the muscles). The PT therapist, Tami, has been seeing great physical response from Jess, particularly in moving his head from left to right on command (22 times last session!). This is awesome because Jess had been pulling his head to left quite hard due to the tone. This means that his neck muscles are getting stronger, which has helped with his head control when in a sitting or standing position.

I have been taking Jess to high school 3 times a week. We go from 1:00 to 4:30 and participate in many activities during that period. The therapists at school have been working with an eye-gaze board for communication. We have seen positive responses from Jess. An eye-gaze board is a rectangle piece of see through plastic with dimensions of 2 ft by 1ft. They put the word “yes” on one side and the word “no” on the other side. We get in front of Jess and have him focus on our eyes in the center of the board and then ask a yes/no question. He can consistently answer these questions by gazing to the right or left to indicate with a yes or no answer. (He got nine answers out of ten correct...the one incorrect answer was a question asking if the year was 2005. Jess said “no”. He must still think it is 2004.) Answering questions is very exciting because we have established a form of communication which seems to be consistent. Jess is taking small steps but we continue to be amazed by the effort he puts in each day.

My dad Chris has gone back to work doing construction full time. Between the five of us (Chris, Pam, Joey, Grandma and Grandpa), Jamie and Jahara on the weekends, the therapists, and of course all the special friends who have been devoting their time (there are too many to name), Jess is getting the best possible chance to come back to us. We all function as one big force of energy and this in itself should be enough to help him recover in time. Thank you all for your unrelenting persistence and faith! Until next time, have a great week. Joey