NEVER EVER GIVE UP SC: The Inspiring Story of Jessie and Her JoyJars - Softcover

Rees, Glatzer

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0310337607 ISBN 13: 9780310337607

Verlag: HarperChristian Resources, 2014

Inhaltsangabe

It started with a simple question: How can we help them? It became an international movement called NEGU: Never Ever Give Up. When Jessica Joy Rees was diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumor at age 11, she chose to focus not on herself but on bringing joy and hope to other children suffering from cancer.

During the ten months she battled cancer, she and her family worked in the “Joy Factory” (originally their garage) making JoyJars®—packages filled with toys, games, and love for other kids with cancer. Jessie first handed them out personally at the hospital where she was being treated, but the effort blossomed quickly and there were soon thousands of JoyJars® being distributed across the United States and to over fifteen countries. Today, more than 100,000 kids have received JoyJars®, and they continue shipping each week to kids in over 200 children’s hospitals and 175 Ronald McDonald Houses.

Jessie lost her battle with cancer in January 2012, but her message lives on in the Jessie Rees Foundation, which has become a beacon of hope for families fighting pediatric cancer.

Join the movement at negu.org.

Über diesen Titel

Über die Autorinnen und Autoren

For over 15 years, Erik Rees helped people discover and direct their God-given S.H.A.P.E. at Saddleback Church. After the loss of his twelve-year-old daughter Jessie to cancer in 2011, Erik used his pain to help other families and is the CEO of the Jessie Rees Foundation. Through Erik’s leadership, Jessie’s mission to encourage every kid fighting cancer to “Never Ever Give Up” is becoming a reality. He and his wife, Stacey, live in Orange County, California, with their children, Shaya and JT, and their two dogs.

Jenna Glatzer (www.jennaglatzer.com) is the author or ghostwriter of 20 books. Her recent work includes The Marilyn Monroe Treasures (Barnes & Noble/Metro Books), a bestseller for Barnes & Noble and released in five languages; My Stolen Son with Susan Markowitz (Berkley/Penguin), which is the true story behind the major motion picture Alpha Dog; Bullyproof Your Child for Life with Joel Haber, Ph.D. (Avery/Penguin); and the authorized biography Celine Dion: For Keeps (Andrews McMeel).  She lives in New York with her daughter.

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Never Ever Give Up

The Inspiring Story of Jessie Rees and Her Joyjars

By Erik Rees, Jenna Glatzer

ZONDERVAN

Copyright © 2014 Erik Rees
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-0-310-33760-7

Contents

1. the walk, 11, 
2. becoming daddy, 31, 
3. how can we help them?, 41, 
4. attack, 51, 
5. negu nation, 63, 
6. choke, 79, 
7. exposed, 97, 
8. mr. moe, 109, 
9. lonely, limited, and labeled, 119, 
10. kona, 137, 
11. September, 147, 
12. decline, 165, 
13. christmas, 179, 
14. the final day, 189, 
15. a celebration of life, 201, 
16. keeping faith, 211, 
17. the jessie rees foundation, 221, 
afterword: "ouch! life hurts ... but God heals", 231, 
acknowledgments, 235, 
25 ways you can help a family with a child fighting cancer, 237, 

CHAPTER 1

the walk

It was unseasonably warm for February, even for California. The day was sunny and crisp, and we had a four-hour break during my older daughter's swimming competition, so my younger daughter asked me if we could go shopping. Naturally. Eleven-year-old Jessie loved to shop, and it had not escaped her that there was a candy store just a few blocks away. Fashion and sweets — combine those two things in a single day, and you could make her as happy as a wren in a birdbath.

I connected with my wife, Stacey — "Meet us for lunch after Shaya gets showered and dressed" — and then headed out for a walk with Jessie. It was something we did often, window-shopping and checking out the latest in preteen clothes and accessories. It was such a happy day, far too beautiful for me to suspect it would herald the worst trauma of our lives.

We were in Long Beach to cheer Shaya on in the Junior Olympics. All three of my kids had taken up swimming, originally to my dismay. I was more of a competitive team sports guy — in fact, I had coached their soccer teams until Shaya one day said she wasn't enjoying it very much and wanted to try another sport. I was hoping she'd say basketball. "Swimming," she said. Well, that left me right out. I hated the water, but my wife had been an All-American swimmer.

"Okay, sure."

Jessie and their younger brother, JT, joined as well because my wife couldn't imagine trying to drive three kids around to three different sports programs. They all joined the Mission Viejo Nadadores, a team with an impressive history. They'd been around since 1968 and won forty-seven national team championships and twenty Olympic medals. Because of our family involvement, Stacey even ended up working for the team three days a week as a bookkeeper.

After joining the team, Shaya became a terrific swimmer and was very competitive, whereas Jessie was more toward the middle of the pack and did it for the camaraderie. She made closer friends on the swim team than she did in school. That afternoon, though, she was not competing, and I had her all to myself.

As we passed a pet shop, we saw a little dog wearing a pink outfit with metal spikes in the window.

"Look, Daddy!" Jessie said with a grin. It was like a punk-rock Chihuahua.

We held hands as we crossed the streets, six or seven blocks. At one point, we stopped in at Jamba Juice for smoothies, and Jessie ordered the Razzmatazz. We turned left out of the building, and a group of about fifteen people was heading toward us because the traffic signal had just changed. It was too hard to get through the crowd side by side.

"Walk in front of me," I told her. "I'll stay right behind you." She did, and then there was a long stretch of nothing much on our left side. Just a big brick building — a bank or something. That's why it surprised me to see her staring at it. She was walking straight ahead, but her head was tilted to the side, seemingly looking and looking at this building.

"What are you looking at?" I asked her.

"I'm just walking, Daddy."

Huh. "Okay."

I continued watching her, and she kept her head at that same odd angle. I didn't say anything for a little while — until I couldn't understand it anymore. What was so interesting off to the left?

I pulled her aside into a parking area and stood right in front of her.

"Look at me," I said.

Her head was still tilted. I gently took her by the chin and straightened out her face.

"Do you see me?" I asked.

"Yeah, I see you."

"Okay. Keep your head just like that."

I stepped back a couple of steps.

"Do you still see me?"

"I see ... blurred."

"Okay. Stay like that."

I stepped back again, until I was about ten steps back from her.

"How about now?"

"I see you, Daddy. I see two of you."

"Really?"

"Yeah."

"Turn your head until you don't see two of me."

Slowly, she turned her head right back to that same odd angle again.

"Now I see just one of you."

"That's ... interesting. Okay."

When Jessie was in fourth grade, we had taken her for a routine eye exam where the optometrist told us she needed reading glasses and also had a bit of a lazy eye and needed help strengthening her eye muscles. We'd spent months doing "pencil pushups," where she'd focus on the pencil's eraser as she gradually moved the pencil from arm's length all the way up to her nose and then back again to work the muscles. It had done a lot of good at the time. Maybe we need to go back to doing that again, I thought.

Despite the fact that she could sometimes be a bit of a drama queen, Jessie didn't seem particularly worried about seeing double. I was more alarmed than she was, but I didn't see a reason to get her nervous. Instead, we headed on to the candy store, where Jessie roamed around gleefully while I waited for Stacey for about twenty minutes. Then I texted her. "Something's wrong with Jessie's eyes. Where are you?"

"What are you talking about?" she wrote.

"Tilting her head sideways to look forward and says she's seeing double. Need you to see this."

"On our way."

Just because I figured it couldn't hurt, we did some of those pencil push-ups with Mentos in the store while we waited. I watched Jessie as covertly as I could — when she bent in to look at the jars of jelly beans, she kept her head straight. It was only when she backed up a little that she began tilting again.

Using a giant lollipop as a point of reference, I repeated my experiment when Stacey arrived.

"What do you see?" I asked Jessie, holding it close to her face.

"One lollipop," she answered.

Two steps back. Blurry. More steps back.

"Two lollipops," she said.

"Okay, tilt your head."

She did. "One lollipop."

Stacey and I exchanged looks, and then we put it aside and went to lunch, where I caught up with the latest exciting news about how the kids got to order room service in their hotel while I had spent the night back at home to take care of the dogs. Jessie loved staying in hotels, but in particular, she had a curious fascination with the miniature ketchup bottles and jellies and syrup that always came with room service trays.

As soon as we got back home to Orange County, Stacey scheduled Jessie's visit with the same optometrist we'd seen earlier. After an exam, he agreed that Jessie had some muscle weakening in her left eye — left lateral eye palsy, he called it — and sent us to an ophthalmologist and a doctor who specialized in eye muscle therapy.

She also had symptoms of a sinus infection, though, so the next stop was her pediatrician's office a few days...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: HarperChristian Resources
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2014
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0310337607
• ISBN 13: 9780310337607
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 240
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: gpsr@libri.de; gpsr@libri.de; ; Friedensallee 273; Hamburg; 22763; Deutschland