To a Godly young man full of zest,
Who always does his best.
When pre-calc gets him down,
Or a cow makes him frown,
He digs in and aces the test!
Well, Jesse, your birthday kind of snuck up on us this year. I think maybe it’s perhaps we haven’t seen very much of you this week. Since you’ve been doing double shift at RVD and keeping up with your schoolwork too, it’s been kind of a busy week. But even with your normal schedule, it seems that rarely do we see you sitting around doing nothing. If your writing, pre-calc, chemistry, banjo, and tractor project are all caught up, and if you’ve done your walkabout the farm/pastures to check on things, more than likely you’re loving on Joshua or teasing another younger sibling. All in good fun, of course, and they love the attention from you… as evidenced by the gifts they gave you tonight. Boy were they excited – especially Josh. So cute, lots of fun. I’ll post the pictures later so we can all enjoy the evening again.
But I’m getting ahead of myself.
I haven’t done a birthday post for awhile, so I had to dig back in the archives and see what I did for the other kids. Oh yes, I did a brief history. Your turn today.
Levi was just one year old when we learned we were expecting another little one. Levi was the cutest little guy, and we enjoyed him so much, and we were so excited God was giving him a sibling. Levi had been diagnosed with Kawasaki Disease in January 1994, and we had many hospital and doctor issues going on at the time; as well, Dad was in the middle of a job change. Life was kind of wild there for awhile. Things settled down after that until August, when Levi had an MI (back then we were told it was a heart attack. We’ve learned since it’s actually called an MI, or Myocardial Infarction - an area of tissue that has recently died as a result of the sudden loss of its blood supply, e.g. following blockage of an artery by a blood clot – Encarta Dictionary). Anyway. Levi was in PICU for two weeks while his doctors tried to evaluate the damage done and decide how to treat it. His doctors were struggling to find the right balance of meds to help his damaged heart (one-fourth of his left ventricle (main pumping muscle) was destroyed), and consequently about every few weeks he was back in the hospital with heart failure. Or asthma, we weren’t sure which. His cardiologist was and is convinced to this day that it was heart failure, and his pulmonologist was just as convinced that it was asthma. So we were doing lasix and lanoxin and a few other medicines besides, and all those breathing treatments – every four hours, rain or shine. Meanwhile, I was very pregnant. Levi’s health was unstable, I was very big, weary, and uncomfortable, and Dad was adjusting to a new job which is always a challenge. And we were young. Very young. Boy, looking back, it’s hard to fathom how young we were. Young in life, young in faith, young in marriage, young in parenting. Of course even now we are still young in the big picture, but 17 years ago we were, well, really young. Of course our struggles were nothing like those who deal with cancer, other fatal diseases, losing a loved one, or other bigger life challenges, but at the time…. well, it wasn’t a walk in the park. But God is faithful and saw us through, meeting our every need and blessing us in so many ways in the midst of the struggles and stress. We serve a big God, and He isn’t limited by our weaknesses – indeed our strength is made perfect in weakness. So on October 6 (Jesse was due on October 3), we checked Levi out of the hospital after yet another bout with heart failure, and got home to our little house in Morton which we so enjoyed. I had been plagued with very uncomfortable false labor the last few weeks, which only complicated matters at the time, so after we had Levi settled in at home, we made plans for his care and zipped off to the hospital where Jesse was born that night at 11:46 – hitting cousin Andrew’s birthday by a mere 14 minutes. Our doctors were wonderful – I felt great, Jesse looked great, Dad & I were both heartily sick and tired of the hospital by that time, and so by 2:00 the next day we were all home! Levi was pleased as punch with Jesse, although he didn’t sit and hold him very much; no, he had too much life to live. And Jesse was a very good baby, with a very laid-back personality and disposition in spite of the stress he had to have picked up from me in his last months. Dad & I were so amazed that we now had two little boys – we had thought Jesse would be a girl (which would have been fine too) but kind of wanted another little buddy for Levi. And Jesse was. They have been good buddies for their whole lives. Sure there have been some spats, but that’s all they are – sibling spats, and not even so much at that. Others of our kids can fight LOTS; Levi & Jesse have just always gotten along well. It’s been an incredible blessing to watch them grow from little buddies to big friends who talk in their bedroom (under our bedroom) long after lights are out and they should be sleeping. We don’t mind one bit. (Usually. Sometimes they can get noisy and we have to tell them to tone it down so we can get to sleep :). Cell phones are good for that!!!!!) Anyway, I’m getting ahead of myself again. Jesse was three weeks old and Levi was in the hospital again. So Jesse got shipped off to Uncle Jerry & Aunt Marcia’s, where Carmen & Brett lavished as much love on him as we would have (almost). We were soooo thankful for their care of and love for him, but boy Jesse’s first Sunday in church was kind of hard on me, because he went with Uncle Jerry’s – and Dad & I were in the hospital with Levi. We were and are so thankful for family who helped us during those difficult times – especially Aunt Marcia who was Jesse’s second mom for awhile there, and Aunt Sarah who was working third shift at OSF and would stop by many (most?) mornings and help with the circus of feeding/bathing/dressing Jesse and doing Levi’s breathing treatments and medicines (all 5 or so of them) plus getting him dressed & fed. Levi was in & out of the hospital a few more times that fall, and somewhere in there Jesse developed a fever which as any parent knows is NOT a good thing with a newborn. We had to take him in to be admitted for 24 hours; he had the septic workup with all its tests to rule out meningitis and all that other scary stuff, plus a few other tests to rule out Kawasaki’s which can be genetic although they don’t know exactly how/why. Anyway. The uncertainty of it all was scary, but again, God was faithful. He always is, never forget that. We made it through those times, and by Christmas when Jesse was about 2 1/2 months old, we were all well and healthy and REJOICING; believe me we were ESTATIC to be normal.
So.
That was kind of a long story about Jesse joining our family – but it was a big thing. God is faithful, who will never suffer us to be tempted above that we are able – yes we know it’s true because God said it, but we’ve also lived it, and can testify that yes, God will never give us anything to bear without giving us the strength, made perfect in weakness, and the grace and help to bear it.
Fast forward. Jesse seemed to survive the stress of his early months, as well as his early years of ear infections. He was the most ear-infected kid we had; why, I do not know. Maybe his early months of stress made him more susceptible; I don’t know and it doesn’t really matter. But I guess fighting all those bacteria and viruses made him tougher than the other kids – because now, when we are all sharing a bug, often he escapes! He says it’s because of all the sugar he eats, but I know better. It’s because he had everything when he was little and so now is immune to it all :) Jesse today is taller than me (barely) and stronger than me (very), and sometimes I can hardly believe the amount of food the kid puts away. I completely understand the term “hollow leg”. In August of 2007, when he was in 7th grade, Jesse answered the call from God to serve Him in humble repentance, and he was baptized on a wonderful day in February 2010. It’s been a blessing to see God working in his life and to watch him grow in faith over the last years; we stand in awe at what God is doing in our lives – how he is leading each of our kids and shaping them into His likeness…an ongoing process in all our lives. It is especially rewarding because Jesse’s younger siblings (especially Joshua) love him and admire him so much – when he comes home from work there’s almost as much excitement as when Daddy comes home! And Jesse is so patient with them and loves them just as much as they love him. Just Wednesday night after church, Jesse had been working and couldn’t go with us. Despite the fact that he leaves the house every morning before 5:00 (that’s AM!), he waited up for us to get home just so he could see the kids, especially Josh. I think it’s a mutual admiration club :) School has always come pretty easy for Jesse; he hopes to study engineering so has started ICC classes, working towards his Associates in Engineering degree which will transfer to Bradley. Of course this plan might change yet, but at this point that’s the goal. In his free time Jesse is often found working on his tractor which doesn’t actually look like a tractor anymore – it’s more a pile of pieces. But he has it all under control, and I’m confident that in time he will have a pretty nice piece of antique equipment for all his efforts. Since Jesse started playing the banjo in April, he’s made wonderful progress, and I love hearing him practice… and I think he enjoys it, too. We look forward to many years of happy picking :)
And that’s Jesse at 17. I could go on, but I won’t; it is quite long enough. Jesse, we are so thankful for you and praise God for putting you in our family. Your love of life and sense of humor bring much laughter and joy into our home; we all know things are more fun when you’re here. May God continue to bless you in all your endeavors; may you bring honor and glory to Him in all you do.
Precious brown baby -
- handsome young man.
We love you Jesse!
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