Father

One year ago today, on June 3, 2018, my son Jackson passed away after 31 days of life. The following is an excerpt from the PostHope.org page that my wife and I created last year when Jackson was in the NICU. This is the first time these words have been shared publicly as our Post Hope page was password protected and only shared with family, friends and coworkers.

After coming home from the Good Samaritan Hospital Neonatal Intensive Care Unit on June 2, having a ventilator removed and breathing on his own for more than 29 hours, our firstborn child Jackson gained his baby angel wings on Sunday, June 3, the 31st day of his life.

In true form, Jackson fought until the very end until his body could no longer properly oxygenate and his heart stopped beating at 7:18 p.m.

From Saturday night into Sunday morning, Nikki and I revived Jackson about nine times, whenever his oxygen saturation level would dip below 70 percent on his pulse oximetry monitor.

As time went on, his dips were becoming more and more frequent. We were doing everything that we could to snap him out of these spells, including chest compressions and infant CPR. Each time he managed to come back; however, there were several incidences where we thought he was at the end.

At noon on Sunday, a palliative care nurse from Starshine came to our house to check on us and see how Jackson was doing. She arrived during one of the times Nikki and I were reviving Jackson and she immediately began to tear up when she saw the scene of us desperately trying to keep him alive.

She told us that putting ourselves through Hell to keep Jackson alive is not comfort care. She suggested that we take Jackson off the monitor and just simply enjoy our time with him.

While we were initially hesitant to take him off the monitor, after a couple more revival episodes, Nikki and I agreed that it would be best for Jackson if we removed every wire off of him – the pulse oximetry monitor and the oxygen nasal cannula – and just let him enjoy his time free of cords. He finally had nothing on his beautiful face!

During his remaining hours, Nikki and I took Jackson outside on a gorgeous warm sunny day. Holding him in our arms, we took him first to our backyard deck and then to our front porch. You could tell he was truly enjoying the sunshine and looked so much at peace whenever the breeze touched his face. It was truly a moment neither one of us will ever forget.

After having Jackson outside for a while, we brought him upstairs to our bedroom and just laid in bed with him for an extended period of time. Once Nikki and I started to doze off, we decided to bring Jackson back downstairs and sit with him on the couch where he ended up taking his final breaths a couple hours later.

To give you an accurate picture of how life was like for Jackson, Nikki and me during the time Jackson was home, watch this 2009 video produced by the Dallas Morning News called “Choosing Thomas — Inside a family’s decision to let their son live, if only for a brief time.”

Nikki and I are truly devastated by the tremendous loss of our firstborn child. There have been more tears shed in the last couple days than at any other time in our lives. This is something we will never get over; it’s something we just hope to learn to live with.

Nikki and I are comforted in knowing that Jackson is now in a much better place. He’s with his grandpa (my dad) in Heaven, along with his great grandparents and other relatives. He will never have to go through another medical procedure and he will no longer be held back by an evil chromosome disorder.

We have no regrets with our decision to bring Jackson home on comfort care, rather than send him to Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center where he was facing a year-long hospital stay. Looking back on it now, it seems unlikely to think Jackson would have been able to survive that long, regardless if he was in the hospital.

The fact that Jackson was able to live 31 days and spend his last moments with his family at his house is a huge blessing to Nikki and I. He defeated so many odds that we will always refer to Jackson as “our little fighter.”

Contribute to the Good Sam NICU
Donations in memory of Jackson Geiser can be made to the Good Samaritan Hospital Neonatal Intensive Care Unit online at bit.ly/InMemoryofJackson or by calling 513-862-3742.

Click here to view Jackson’s obituary published June 6, 2018, in The Cincinnati Enquirer.

Today is my first Father’s Day without my father.

This is a hard reality. My emotions are raw, ranging from depression to pride.

My father Bill Geiser passed away in January 2017 after a hard-fought battle with esophageal cancer.

Not a moment has passed without me thinking about him and missing him. Dad and I had a special bond. He was more than just my father; he was my best friend.

Like I said to the crowd who gathered to pay their respects during his eulogy, “I won the Dad Lottery.”

I could not have asked for a better mentor, supporter, teacher and friend. Dad was always there for me. From when I was a small child teaching me how to swing a baseball bat, to an adolescent when he showed me the proper way to parallel park, to adulthood when he advised on the best techniques to paint the interior walls of my first house, my Dad was always there for me.

We bonded over everything, from cars, politics, and mainly sports. As Cincinnati natives, we spent countless hours watching the Reds, Bengals (mostly to get a laugh) and Bearcats basketball and football.

As I look back on the impact Dad has had on my life, the biggest lesson I have learned from him is the importance of being a good, honest family man.

My dad was married to my mom Dianna for more than 36 years when he passed away. They were unequivocally committed to one another and to their family. They were inseparable. Watching their love grow stronger over the course of three decades has been an inspiration to me when it comes to my own marriage of almost one year to my wife Nichole.

Many people do not know this, but Nikki was gracious enough to move up our wedding date by one whole calendar year due to my father’s illness. Nikki and I got engaged in May 2016 and no more than three weeks later we found out that my dad had cancer. Once we officially got the diagnosis that it was stage four E.C., we decided to get married on July 15, 2016, instead of July 15, 2017, in order for my Dad to be there and share that experience with us. He actually delayed his first chemotherapy treatments until July 18 in order to be at his best for our wedding.

I will forever be grateful to Nikki for being so considerate and understanding, sacrificing a traditional, big wedding for a small, intimate gathering of parents, grandparents and siblings at a public park in Cincinnati, Ohio. It was a beautiful day, with my Dad serving as best man, groomsman and ring boy.

Not only was my Dad tremendous to his own family, he was a “saint” to his mom, my grandmother, Jean. For years, I witnessed my Dad spending much of his time with Jean, who by the Grace of God spent her remaining years living independently in a two-family house that she purchased, despite having a prosthetic leg. If my Dad didn’t stop by her house every day, it was certainly at least every other day. Sometimes it would be to do some work on her house; him being a master craftsman and carpenter for over 30 years helped. Other times, it would simply to stop by and spend some time laughing with her.

I was not the only person who noticed how dedicated Dad was to his mother. The property managers of the house adjacent to Jean’s saw it. In the months since Dad’s passing, my mother reached out the property managers to gauge their interest in purchasing Jean’s home. During this exchange, the property managers revealed to Mom that they referred to Dad as “St. Bill” for his treatment of Jean. This filled my mom’s heart with joy and pride. That’s the type of person Dad was.

One of the things that I miss the most about Dad is his terrific sense of humor. It was one of his gifts and allowed him to forge so many friendships throughout his lifetime. His quick wit and smart-ass remarks could put even the most uptight person into tears of laughter.

While I may not be able to spend another Father’s Day with Dad playing catch in the outfield of Great American Ball Park (which we did in 2015), sharing a few beers in his immaculately-kept backyard, or later on in the future watch him play with his grandchild(ren); I will always spend it remembering his best qualities and how lucky I was to have him as my Dad for 33 years.

My Dad has inspired me to dedicate my life to being a good and better man to my wife, Nikki, and our family.

If I turn out being even just half the man my father was, then I will have felt like I have achieved the impossible.

JeffGeiser.com

One year ago today: Jackson, our little fighter, went to Heaven

My first Father’s Day without my father