Portrait Of A Hero - Glenda Part 2

This is Part 2 of a 2 part article on my cousins wife, Glenda, and her story of loosing their only children with in a short time of each other.  Click HERE to view Part 1.

Jeremy Stephen Ferguson  9-6-78 to 7-14-00

Jeremy did not handle Justin’s illness or death very well.  He also questioned the fact that it should have been him.  I know that Jeremy could have never gone through what Justin did.  I call what Jeremy did was run from everything. 

On Nov 1, 96, one month to the day after Justin passed away, Jeremy had a horrible accident.  He was at a party with his friends and was rushing home to meet his curfew.  He hit a culvert at a high rate of speed and flipped his truck. 

Jerry, my husband, had gone to the hunting lease, and I stayed.  Our phone was out, but Jeremy’s worked.  His phone kept ringing and I didn’t answer it.  I heard a friend of his yelling in the answering machine, “Mrs. Ferguson pick up, Jeremy wrecked his truck!”  I ran to the phone and asked where he was.  I called my neighbor to go with me, and I launched my car and landed at the wreck site. 

A DPS officer yelled at me and said I couldn’t park there in the street, and I told him he could move it, because that was my son lying on the ground.  Jeremy was driving a single cab Dodge Ram PU.  He went out the back window with his feet first.  Thank goodness a friend “angel” was right behind him and knew that he needed not to move his head.  She laid on the ground and held C-spine on him, until the ambulance could arrive.

Jeremy kept telling everyone he needed to tell me something.  After we got in the ambulance, Jeremy kept apologizing to me and said he had something important to tell me.  He said that he had a dream that morning about Justin.  He saw Justin in tall green grass with his dogs. Justin was laughing and told Jeremy that he was ok.  Jeremy also said that before his wreck, he heard Justin say, I got you Jeremy, and felt arms wrap around him.  I believe that God was there because Jeremy had broken his C1 and C2 vertebrae and should be paralyzed or dead. 

When we got to the emergency room, Katherine, my sister-in-law, an EMT, was there filling out paper work for her job.  When she realized that it was Jeremy in the room, she went to the doctor to see what was going on.  When the doctor told her what had happened, she told the doctor that I had lost my other son only a month ago, so to watch for my reaction. 

Jeremy wore a “halo” for 6 weeks, and the doctors where surprised that his neck healed so fast and well. Jeremy had trouble dealing with Justin’s death, and was always “running” from it.  Jeremy had another accident but only the car was hurt. 

Then, Jeremy and 3 of his friends went to work around Waxahachie, TX,  he was coming home, but never made it.  The DPS officers knew that we had lost one son, and did not want to come bearing bad news, so they went to Katherine, my sister-in-laws house to get her to come tell us.  Adam, our nephew and Katherine’s son, was the first to know because the DPS had followed him in the driveway.  Katherine came over with 2 friends to give us the terrible news. 

Jerry and I were devastated and didn’t understand why us, what did we do?  I think we both knew that Jeremy had finally quit running, but he was also gone.  Thank goodness for wonderful friends and family.  Katherine had taken care of notifying my parents.  They sent over an ambulance to be with them.  I had my aunt, cousin, and their children with my parents.  They had come for a visit, and we had been in Galveston all day together.  This really hit all of us hard. 

My parents had lost their sons at birth, and now both grandsons were gone.  The week after Jeremy was buried, my aunt had a heart attack.  I just thought that it would never end. 

God knew what we needed, so he gave Jerry and I five foster children to love.  Haylee (13), Andre’ (11), Kristian (9), Andrew and Drea (7) came to live with us over the next 6 years.  Haylee is the only one that knew Jeremy, and he loved to take care of her.  He would take her with him and never complained about watching her. 

These wonderful children have given us love and hope for better things.  They keep us busy running and doing, but it really is nice to have all the hugs they give.  Jerry loves to take them hunting and fishing.  Actually they remind us of Jeremy and Justin at times. 

God has given us the strength to rise above the tragedies, and open our hearts and home to more wonderful times. 

Jerry and I both worked in the Fire Dept and saw many people go through the loss of a loved one.  Since we had been there, we could say some things that were comforting to them.  You never know what a person is feeling, unless you have stood in their shoes.  

God is good, and yes he doesn’t give us more than we can handle, but no one says it has to be easy. 

Losing both of our sons was devastating. I felt that I wasn’t a good parent.  I know that God has a plan for all of us, and that helped some, but knowing that our boys still had a long life they could have lived is difficult.  I still see their friends, and it is hard sometimes to watch them with their spouses and children, thinking what would Jeremy and Justin’s lives be like now.

God had a plan for Jerry and me.  Raising small children can be very time consuming, and we are at the age that we should be able to just spend time together.  We are so busy with our kids now, but I couldn’t imagine not having them.