Q: Before we begin, can you tell me just a little bit about your background, where you live, your history with your wife, how your relationship got going, etc.?
A: Well, we live in Traveler’s Rest, South Carolina – beautiful place. My wife absolutely loved it. We met in school, at Greenville college school to be exact. She was eating by herself at the dining hall at the university, and I saw her and asked her if I could join, and she said no. And she turned me down for the next four times I asked her out. And that went on for about a year and a half, but I guess when you know you know, and I kept asking her if she would be willing so much as to go on a date, and pretty much kept running into a brick wall. But she finally said yes, and we ended up getting married I guess two and a half years after we met, and I had to work really hard for her, but it was worth every day.
Q: What do you do for work?
A: She and I both worked at a children’s home. Miracle Hill children’s home. I still work there. She was employed in January of 2005.
Q: What do you do there?
A: She and I were house parents, youth mentors for five years. I now have changed positions because my marital status has changed, and I am overseeing the staff of the children’s home.
Q: Is this a Christian apostolate?
A: It is Christian.
Q: Obviously you and your wife had very strong convictions, which I assume are tied into religious belief. What particular denomination, what are your beliefs when it comes to religion?
A: We attended a non-denominational church that is part of the Southern Baptist Convention, but it is not Southern Baptist. That’s a hard answer to give. It’s a church that will not label itself clearly.
Q: What about your pro-life convictions? Obviously these were very crucial to you. Where did those come from? What was your history in terms of pro-life?
A: Sometimes pro-life to us always was very black and white. And it is very black and white, in a sense. But when every belief you have is challenged all of a sudden, unexpectedly, you don’t lose faith, your faith is actually strengthened, but you make sure that what you believe is what God wants you to believe.
So our beliefs on pro-life were challenged out of fear, mainly. And so we Jessica was stronger than I was. And she was very afraid; but she was very adamant that she was not going to dishonor God or even think about harming her baby, whether purposely or through treatments. And I, although I believed those things, in my mind and heart, it was a very serious struggle for me.
Sometimes it’s easier to be selfless as far as whatever happens to you, but when it comes down to losing the one you love more than anything else, it’s very difficult. It was a very strong struggle, but in the end there was no question that this is what God wanted us to do. And it came down to choosing to believe by faith rather than give into the fear and give in to the feelings.
Q: Take me back then to the beginning of everything happened, in terms of the pregnancy and where it ultimately led. Take me back right to the beginning, before you knew that she had cancer, or before she knew that she was pregnant. Give me the timeline about what happened and your own thoughts as it was unfolding.
A: She started having a sore throat back in, I guess it would be August of 2010. And we also suspected that she was pregnant, but we weren’t too sure. We thought she was, but we weren’t positive. The two coincided almost exactly to the day of conception. She went to the doctor just after a few weeks because the sore throat wouldn’t go away and she noticed a lump, but the doctor thought it was just a goiter, didn’t say much about it. He had an ultrasound or something like that and said that the test came back liquid. But it didn’t, he was wrong. He misread the test. It wasn’t liquid. So we thought everything was fine, that it was just a thyroid problem. We took some supplements and thought it would be ok, but it got worse.
She went back to a specialist early November, the first week in November, and he said he wasn’t going to touch it. He said she would need to see another specialist, and that was a month out, we wouldn’t be able to see him til December. She started having trouble breathing around the 15th of November, and we ended in the emergency on the 21st of November, and she stopped breathing on the 22nd. Her throat completely closed up, and they still didn’t know what it was at that point. But they were able to get a tube down her throat, and put her on a ventilator. Those were the events leading up to it.
But we did not find out she had cancer until the 23rd of November.
Q: Carry on. Once you found out she had cancer and the pregnancy, what happened then?
A: Her response was more fear and surprise because she’s always been extremely, extremely healthy. Watched what she ate very carefully. Tried to honor God with her body. Exercised regularly. Hers was a mixture of fear and surprise. Mine was just … every emotion you can think of, I had it, except for joy. I was a basket case. She seemed to take it.
For that first week she was afraid. She wanted to make sure of her salvation; she wanted to understand, hear the Gospel again and make sure that she understood it correctly. I think she was pretty sure from the beginning that she was going to die. Dying people have that sense; even when they don’t want to accept it, in their heart they know. And I think she knew.
It was just too many emotions to recount, but what it came down to for her was just fear and more shock.
But then they came on the 25th, the ob/gyn, and offered an abortion. And she said no immediately. That was never an option. That is black and white. And they offered her treatments. First question Jessica wrote down for them was about the baby. And the oncologist said that if she took the chemo treatments, they were the two nastiest chemo treatments they had and she would lose the baby. The ob/gyn countered that and said you most likely won’t lose the baby, but there will probably be some brain damage. And Jessica looked at me and it took her a few seconds and she shook her head no. They offered her radiation, the radiologist came by to see her and he explained that because she was early in the second trimester that the baby would live with the radiation but, quote, “would not have much of a life,” if she accepted the radiation. By that time Jessica had grown stronger, and once again she just shook her head no and rejected that as well.
We really didn’t have a lot of treatment options after that. Surgery was never an option because of where the cancer was. So that kind of ended the battle as far as actual death occurring with the baby or severe damage. Once the baby reached the third trimester, in January I think it was, that’s when – I guess it would have been late January – that’s when the real struggle began to start, because they still said that there were still risks to the baby, but the risks were minimal because the baby was fully developed, all the organs were fully developed, the brain was mostly developed, and that she could withstand treatments. But when Jessica asked for a number as far as a statistical name, a percentage of what change to hurt the baby, they gave her low percentages, and neither of us, neither my wife or I trusted them on that. And so she once again said no.
A week and a half later she died.
The baby had just reached viability at 23 ½ weeks. The doctors said she was 25, but then when they took the baby out, they realized that there was no way she was 25 weeks, that the baby was probably between 23 and 24, which is just barely the point of viability. And I can only testify to God’s grace on that, because Jessica died right when the baby was viable for life outside the womb.
Q: When it came to the question of accepting or not accepting treatment, this was an area where there was more nuance in terms of morality and what was correct. It seems like Jessica was pretty strong right off the bat. Were you more hesitant, was there a process of coming of terms to that, with the question of treatment in particular?
A: I had no problem with her decision. It would have been a greater struggle if I had been the only one to make a decision and Jessica had been unconscious, I couldn’t have done it. Yes, I did struggle, because the one person that we’re commanded to love more than myself, this was her. I did struggle. When they first asked the question as far as treatment, so there is always that struggle there, especially in the other part in marriage, for the person who’s not going through it, there is that struggle.
I cannot describe it. It was just so emotionally brutal, are the best terms to use. But once again it came back to faith. Doing right no matter what the consequences. So, yes I accepted it once she made the decision; it strengthened me, it helped me.
Q: Now I guess there’s an interesting question. Jessica did the heroic thing in terms of sacrificing herself for her child. Do you believe it would have been wrong to have accepted the treatment?
A: Every circumstance is different. For us it would have been wrong.
Q: What was the doctor’s reaction to Jessica’s decision?
A: The first time they weren’t surprised because they already knew we Christians by that point. They were very, they knew the religious convictions that we held already. And they weren’t too surprised. They accepted our answers. But once Jessica reached the end of the second trimester, they almost seemed very confused, and I think the only reason, not the only reason, one of the reasons that influenced Jessica’s choice was that she knew she was going to die anyway. She didn’t share that with me until almost when she died. Right up until she died. But I think she knew, but she was thinking she was going to give this baby chance.
So the doctors’ reactions, to answer your question straight up, the doctors’ reactions were confused – like, why won’t you do this kind of reaction. They tried to convince us again that the risks were minimal, but it really came down to trust on that – we did not feel, on a gut feeling, we did not think that they were being totally and completely honest with us.
Q: What about her family and your family?
A: Completely and totally supportive. Both sets of parents accepted our decisions, they had no problem with our decisions. They were very understanding. Both sets of parents do claim Evangelical Christianity, and so it hurt, her parents especially, but they agreed with all the decisions we made. We didn’t receive any opposition from them at all.
Q: You didn’t have any other children did you?
A: I have a son, a two-and-a-half year old.
Q: So you did have a son. How has your son taken it?
A: Wow. For the first month he did not get to see his mother at all. The only way I can give you his reaction is how he reacted to me. He wouldn’t have anything to do with me. He wouldn’t look at me, he would not respond, he cried as soon as I would walk in the door. When I came home he would fall to pieces.
But when he got to see his mom again after about the first four weeks, he got to visit her every three days. He started doing better. The first thing he said when he walked in the room and he saw the tube in her mouth, he said, “Mom? Mom can’t breathe.” That was awful. You know, two-year-olds are not supposed to understand that, but he picked up on that right away. No one had told him that, that I know of. And he got it. He understood that she was sick. He understood what that meant. And, he’s doing much better now. He’s adjusted well. He’s only two-and-a-half. But for the first month, to use clinical terms, separation exhaustion – I’m not a big psychobabble person – was very obvious. You could tell that he was really having a hard time, with his mom disappearing.
Q: How is Jessie doing?
A: She weighs two pounds and thirteen ounces. She’s on a ventilator and has had a lot of trouble developing her lungs. But other than that she seems to be doing very well. Her digestive system and her eyes and her brain all look very good.
Q: Have you been receiving a lot of help from other people during this time?
A: Yes. Especially after Jessica died. Actually while she was in the hospital, and for about 36 days after she died, it was just constant. People most generous financially, cooking meals for us a couple times a week. Yes we received tons of support. It’s tapered off now, which we expect. And most people just don’t what to do. And that’s perfectly understandable. And in reality it’s just a waiting thing right now. There’s not much to do.
But yes, to understand your question, the Church, churches we didn’t even know existed, just showed up out of nowhere and started providing meals and support and money and everything that we needed. What we would have done without the Church, as a whole, the universal Church, what we would have done without the Church I have no idea. We probably would have received zero, literally zero support except from a few scattered relatives.
Q: How have you personally – this is kind of the difficult question here – how have you dealt with the loss of your wife I guess in the last couple months?
A: I don’t have the option of getting away because of my daughter in the hospital. Otherwise I would have taken a break and gone somewhere for a week and mourned properly, but I don’t have that option. So for now by choice – and I do understand what I’m emotionally doing to myself, it’s not just something that’s happening to me – I’m working a lot and spending time with my son, and I’m at the hospital as much as I can be. Those three things keep me busy, keep my mind occupied, and help me deal with what’s going on. But I think the time is going to come within the next few months where I will just need to drop everything and you know, mourn, I guess is the best way to put it.
To be totally honest with you, the first month was the greatest struggle. I’m going to be very open now, because anything that will help anyone in the future, I wanted to do that.
For about the first month, I could not, and I mean that in a literal inability, I could not read my Bible, I could not pray. I could not, it’s almost like you smacking your child’s hand when they’re about to reach something. The last thing they want to do at that point is to hug you and give you a kiss. You don’t smack them and they want to give you a hug and a kiss – sometimes they do yeah. But that’s rare. And that’s what it felt like. It felt like I’d just received a very strong disciplinary action, even though I hadn’t done anything for God to take me wife – it wasn’t that type of situation. That’s what it felt like.
And there was a period of feeling betrayal and feeling lost. Not in the justification or salvation sense – just lost. You don’t know if you can trust God. But after about a month – a month sounds about right – slowly I started to read my Bible again, I started to accept the reality and pray again and actually pray for other people, was a big help in bringing me to a point where I feel fellowship with God again. Because even though I knew cognitively that the relationship was there, I knew He loved me, I accepted all these things from a mental standpoint, I felt nothing, spiritually. And it’s not about the feelings, but the delight in God was completely gone for about a month. I was functioning solely on what I knew to be true from a mental standpoint.
Q: I read your post on Job. It’s seems like you took a lot of strength from the story of Job.
A: Yes sir.
Q: I’ll be publishing a story on Jessica soon, so what do you hope that people will get from this story? What do you hope that they will walk away with from her sacrifice?
A: Don’t be afraid to die. Death for the Christian is a mercy. It is part of the curse, but for the Christian it is a mercy, or a grace – a mercy in a sense that you leave this world, and a grace in the sense of entering the presence of God. And girls especially who are especially facing abortion versus death, or women I should say, don’t be afraid of death.
And secondly, to know and to live by the fact that God is good all the time.
Q: I think that’s all the questions that I have. Is there anything that you would like to add?
A: No sir, I just want to be a help to people, that’s all. Anything that you can print that would help people, I’m grateful and thankful for your doing this.