The call that no parent ever wants to receive was received by Mona and I earlier this month. The notice that our loving son was killed in a fatal car accident was heartbreaking, and the feeling of loss is excruciating and cannot be explained in words. The truly heartfelt words and abundant prayers by this community were felt by my family. Knowing of your care and concern for us as a family gave us strength and resilience as we mourned, cried, and supported others around us as they also grieved. Thank you. Very sincerely, thank you.
What I am about to share is one perspective, as an educator and a parent. It helps me to write this and I hope it helps other parents and their beautiful children.
When a child is born, and a parent holds their child in their arms, many emotions emerge and so many hopes and dreams for that child play out in one’s mind. Happiness, education, a life’s partner, self-sufficiency, personal fulfillment, health, and so much more take shape as dreams. Mona and I carried those dreams for our son’s 22 years before his passing, and we will live with knowing not all of those dreams had time to come true. Many other dreams and aspirations, many that were beyond our comprehension, have certainly and positively come true. His kindness. His willingness to help others. His joy for life and adventure. His faith. And his free spirit.
College, for many families, is one of those dreams. It represents a way to build a life of meaning — to learn, to grow personally, and to identify one’s life’s purpose building on core values often cultivated through family and community. TJ, like many of our children in this community, was raised to help and care for others. He was raised to inspire and support others, to be nonjudgmental, and to fully accept those who may be less popular. And, somewhat less orthodox, he was encouraged to carve a different path for his life. Our son TJ also loved taking pictures. He didn’t take photographs to necessarily capture the moment. He took photographs to make art. In one of his college courses, he learned how to manipulate light in such a way that he could creatively modify his black and white photographs into something artistic.
Our son, TJ was creating a unique and beautiful life building on deep-seated values of his family and community, including our encouragement to chart his own course, and inspired by what he learned in college. Showing young kids how to be creative and to work outside the box was becoming his passion — his emerging life’s purpose. A singular course, including the guidance and openness of one professor and the inspiration of other equally aspiring students, artists, musicians, and practitioners supported and brought TJ’s dreams to life. This is why college matters.
As parents, we live in a sort of box and we may believe that our children can and should also fit into that box. Some of this is due to societal norms and expectations about how people should be or act. Raising TJ extended our box — greatly. Our box was extended so we could remain connected and supportive of our son. Upon TJ’s death, we have learned, like many parents before us, that it wasn’t our box that mattered. It didn’t matter at all. TJ was different. TJ was a free spirit, and by default, that doesn’t always fit into societal norms. His total love of life and adventure tested the limits for many. Our parental box was simply too small to fully understand that his true spirit, his true nature, had a box that was already incredibly larger than our own. It wasn’t our box that was expanding. Rather, it was his box that was expanding to include us, his parents, and all those around him near and far. That is what made him special.
Our reflection as parents is that we didn’t always understand the true language of his spirit, his free spirit. And maybe it wasn’t our place to. But his gift is now ours to share and for all to treasure and nurture. That gift is the reminder to always see in young people, including in our students, what is uniquely bold, caring, adventurous, and free-spirited. The gift comes with responsibility: to resist the temptation to box them in and to help these spirits enlighten and inspire others in the ways only free spirits truly can.
Dreams matter, as does family and community. Difference matters. Tell those around you how you really feel, parents hug your kids, educators welcome your students as they are, honor what they bring, and let that spirit shine within them.
Be well.
Dr. Tom Jackson Jr. is the president of Humboldt State University.