When someone dies young, people often tell you to hold onto your memories.
And you do.
You remember their laugh.
Their favorite foods.
The jokes they always told.
The way they walked into a room.
But over time, I realized I wasn’t only grieving who Jesse was.
I was grieving the person he never got the chance to become.
For years, it was a running joke in our family that Jesse was forever twelve years old. It didn’t matter if he was sixteen, eighteen, or nineteen. To me, he was always “my twelve-year-old little brother.”
I never stopped to imagine him becoming a man.
Then one day, I didn’t have that choice anymore.
Now, every year that passes, I find myself wondering what twenty, twenty-one, twenty-two, twenty-three-year-old Jesse would have looked like. Would he have grown a beard? Would he still wear the same goofy grin? Would he have finally outgrown some of the things we teased him about?
I’ll never know.
And that’s a different kind of grief.
It’s grieving someone who existed while also grieving someone who never had the chance to.
Some of the hardest moments aren’t the obvious ones.
They’re the beautiful ones.
The day my daughter, April, was born.
The day my son, Clyde, was born.
Those should have been some of the happiest days of Jesse’s life too.
Instead, they became reminders that he wasn’t there.
Sometimes I catch myself laughing with my children and a thought slips into my mind before I can stop it.
Why do I get to keep laughing when he doesn’t?
Grief can make joy feel complicated.
Not because you’re unhappy.
But because someone you love no longer gets to experience the moments you’re living.
I know exactly what kind of uncle Jesse would have been.
He would have spoiled these kids endlessly.
He would have shown up with toys after I specifically told him not to.
He would have taught them every sport he ever loved.
He would have been on the floor playing with them until they wore him out.
He would have encouraged things that probably would have driven me crazy.
And I would have secretly loved every minute of it.
People sometimes ask what my children will know about Jesse.
The answer is…
Everything I can possibly give them.
They’ll know his stories.
They’ll know his laugh.
They’ll know what made him laugh until he couldn’t breathe.
They’ll see every picture.
Every video.
They won’t remember him for themselves, so I’ll spend the rest of my life helping them know the uncle they never got to meet.
Becoming a mother changed my grief in ways I never expected.
Before I had children, my heart broke because I lost my little brother.
After becoming a mom, another layer appeared.
I look at my own children, and I can’t begin to imagine what my mom carries every single day. Losing a sibling is devastating. Watching your own child die is a depth of pain I hope I never truly understand.
It also makes me think about how fragile life really is. It makes acts of kindness feel even more important. It reminds me that our choices matter because they ripple through families for years.
Sometimes I wonder what Jesse would think if he could see Jesse’s Justice today.
I don’t think he’d be embarrassed.
Honestly, I think he’d think it was pretty sick.
He’d probably be a little speechless that people were coming together in his name.
He’d be proud.
Of course, if you asked him, he’d trade every bit of it just to be here instead.
So would I.
If you’ve lost someone young, maybe you understand this feeling.
You aren’t only grieving the birthdays they missed.
You’re grieving the husband or wife they never became.
The parent they never became.
The grandparent they never became.
The version of themselves that the world never got the chance to meet.
That’s a loss no photograph can capture.
It’s a future that exists only in your imagination.
And somehow, you learn to carry that too.
Not because it gets easier.
But because love keeps finding new places to live.
From Jesse’s Justice
No one should have to walk through grief alone.
Through free grief resources, advocacy, education, and community support, we strive to honor Jesse’s life by helping others navigate theirs.
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🖤♥️ For Jesse. For Justice.