A few days ago, we found out that our friend’s son died. His name is Jerard, he’s almost 5 years old. Ever since he was born he already had a problem. He had a twin brother who was born normal. My family and I first met Jerard and family of one of Bebe’s (Bob’s language teacher) kids birthday. I think Jerard was like a year old at that time. When we saw him, we could tell he really had problems. After talking to the parents, we found out that Jerard was blind and he also had hearing problems. We didn’t really ask to many questions because Jerard was fussy and needed to rest. We saw Jerard a few times after that.
Jerard was adopted by our friend. They are missionaries. We knew them of course from Bebe. They adopted the twins knowing that one of them had problems. They adopted Jerard and his brother when they were almost 2 months old. Jerard was born with a big head, I don’t know what his sickness called. The parents told us, but I forgot the medical term. I think as soon as he could handle the surgery they had him undergo for the surgery to get rid of the fluids out from his head. I think he had a few surgeries over his life time. When we first saw him his head was still a bit bigger than normal. But the last time we saw him a few months ago his head was already in normal size. I just know that Jerard was sickly and he was in and out of the hospital through the mom’s post on her wall on Facebook. When she stopped posting I thought he was getting better. But we found out when we saw them at the wake that after going in and out in the hospital his health was deteriorating. They already knew that anytime he will be taken.
Seeing a childs casket is so sad
I really respect the parents that adopted him. You know they went through so much with Jerard. But they fully accepted it and showered so much love and support for him. The couple had 3 kids of their own. The ages ranges closely with my kids. The kids really loved the twin kids too. The youngest of the 3 really had a hard time. Seeing him at the funeral parlor crying a lot really is a heart breaking. He always goes to the casket, not sure if talking to Jerard or just really watching him. Bebe was helping them on how the Filipino way of dealing with the death in the family. They want to integrate the Filipino and American cultures. As you know in the Philippines the dead has to have somebody watching 24 hours (I mean no sleeping during wake). So a lot of the Filipino/American friends was there to help out. They had food there at the wake too. People were playing games there but not betting money. Just playing for fun to avoid boredom and sleepiness.
I think if Jerard was not adopted by the couple and just stayed with the parents, I think Jerard was already gone a long time ago. I am not saying bad about the couple but they can’t afford to handle the expenses of a sickly kid and also expenses with taking care of the other kids. I found out that the mom of Jerard was sickly too. I think she passed on a long time a few years ago. I think they tried but just can’t handle the expenses of all the kids they had.
Our friends already almost got done with the adoption process. Hopefully the other one will officially be theirs soon. The twin brother is really a funny and giggly kid. He likes to talk to Bob. The family was so happy to have Jerard and the twin brother in their lives. You can just see the happiness in their faces when seeing them. Hopefully they will recover soon with the loss of Jerard.
“To Beth, Kurt and the kids and Ruth (2nd mom to Jerard, she adores him too) our deepest condolences to you guys”.