the accident

Jesse was on his way to Bozeman, Montana for a job interview at Deaconess Hospital.  He had finished his post graduate work in December at University of Denver and was to be hired as a psychometrist. They were looking forward to having him there and he was excited to be there.  We got up at 5 that morning, had breakfast and he left about 5:45.  I hugged him as he left then followed him out to the car for one last “I love you.”  “I love you, too.” At 11:43 in the morning, about 40 miles north of Casper, Wyoming, in slushy road conditions, his car hydroplaned, spun a complete 360 then rolled off an embankment.  It rolled twice before coming to a stop, right side up. Jesse put the car in park, put on the emergency brake, undid his seatbelt, got out of the car and put the keys in his pocket.  He did not realize he had a broken left femur. He had just passed a state trooper, who was stopped with another vehicle by the side of the road, and who saw the accident, arriving at the scene in 3 minutes. Another driver, Justin Ferguson, was just behind Jesse on the highway and immediately stopped to render aid.  Justin jumped down the embankment just as Jesse got out of the car, and asked, “Are you OK?”  Jesse responded, “Yea, I’m OK.”  At that moment, the trooper arrived and said to Justin, “Are you involved in the accident?” Justin said, “No, he is.” Both turned to Jesse, but he had collapsed.  The trooper immediately began CPR and continued 40 minutes or so until the ambulance arrived and took over.  They continued performing emergency measures, but it was to no avail.  The coroner believes the impact of the roll-over caused a break in his neck high near the base of the skull.  She knows of other cases where the individual doesn’t realize they are injured, they sit up, they talk, and then the spinal cord is severed resulting in instant and painless death. 

Although these details may seem morbid, there are so many tender mercies in the events of his death that I find great comfort in their telling.  The circumstances of his life at the time of his death were joyful; he had much to look forward to and was at a very happy time of life.  To my way of thinking, if he had to leave this world, it was a perfect time to go. He did not suffer; he wasn’t alone.  So often the victims of accidents are found after-the-fact, leaving loved ones to wonder, “What happened? Did they suffer?”  I am grateful to know, and so very grateful the right people were there to do all they could to help him.  His final words, “I’m OK” remind me that he is indeed, OK.

Jesse George Ricks

I lost my son, Jesse, one month ago today in a car accident.  I have tried to write a post about him several times but find I can’t put words to the many feelings I have yet to sort through. I am overwhelmed with gratitude that he was my son, that I had him with me for 29 years. I am so sorry for the struggles he faced, yet I am in awe at the amazing man he became, tender, loving, creative, resourceful, brilliant, kind, helpful, gentle, funny… I ache with the loss I feel, yet I find such joy in the many happy memories I have of him, of being with him. I will share those from time to time.  For now, I will let his brother’s eulogy paint a picture of him.

A Tribute to the Life of Jesse George Ricks

Given by Elijah Ricks

Brothers and Sisters, family and friends, thank you for coming today to join my family and me in the celebration of Jesse’s life. We have been overwhelmed since last Monday by your thoughtful condolences, kind gifts, and fond memories of Jesse.

It is now my task and privilege to share with you my little brother, Jesse George Ricks.

Jesse was the third of six children. The eldest three of us were all born 2 years apart in the same month: November.  Jesse George was named after two of his great-grandfathers whose names coincidentally mean “wealthy” and “amasses a fortune”, which may have something to do with why he was so thrifty.  We discovered a king’s ransom in loose change scattered throughout his room this week, adding some credibility to the names. When Jesse joined our family, Nate and I had pretty much established our territory, and had Mom and Dad trained to do our bidding, so Jesse’s arrival naturally caused some stir. We had been growing tired of pounding on each other, though, so were anxious for some fresh meat. Unfortunately, Jesse never really had much meat on him. I’m not sure he ever made it above 135. In fact, just recently he told our mother that he might need to switch down to 2% milk, probably because he could no longer count his ribs by sight.

Jesse came home from the hospital and then abruptly returned with a diagnosis of pneumonia. But Jesse was never one to be defeated by adversity, and he certainly was not going to let a little thing like inflamed lungs hold him back from life. If you know the details of his accident, you can see that that was true up to the end. As a baby, he bounced back from the illness and returned home with an attitude. As a young boy, Jesse had the smile of an angel, the cunning of a fox, and the patience of a crocodile. My parents often relate the time we lived in Omaha, when a missionary brand new to the field unwittingly got a tad too close to little Jesse, and received a swift boot to the shin for his mistake. We laugh at that story now, but you’ve got to give him credit; that elder never got within range of Jesse’s boots again.One might hope this was an isolated incident, but a young woman in the ward who had witnessed it disclosed to my parents that Jesse had done the same thing to her weeks earlier.

Jesse always had a little bit of fire inside of him. We have home video of Jesse just a little while out of his shin-kicking phase, where our mother caught him just after waking up one morning. Jesse sees our mother approaching him, shoots her the deadliest look a 6-year-old can give, and screams, “MOOOOM! I gotta pee. And put that away!”

Luckily for all of us, Jesse was able to direct this fire inside of him to more productive and humorous outlets later in life. I’m not sure if he ever actually implicated himself on this one, but a little bird told me that more than once during his high school years somebody set off a harmless, but effective stink bomb inside the school. Perhaps not coincidentally, the stink bombs were always found in an area Jesse had just passed through, but ended clear of. My brother-in-law who is just a little younger than Jesse, tells us fondly that he would ride with Jesse off campus to lunch sometimes when they were in high school together, and that, by some mechanical “oddity”, the tiny spray nozzle on his car from whence the windshield wiper fluid was sprayed had been redirected so that it did not actually spray the windshield. In another strange coincidence, Jesse just never remembered this about his car, and yet always noticed a smudge on the windshield just as he drove by some pedestrian. Jesse loved a good laugh, and even more enjoyed getting other people to laugh.

Before we had enough space for six children, we kids often shared a room. I haven’t done the math, but as near as I can tell, Jesse and I shared a room longer than any of the other siblings. Anyone who has lived within the same four walls as my brother can tell you that Jesse was a bit of a hoarder. In fact, a few weeks after Jesse had started school, our dear mother happened to open his closet door, where what should she find but every single brown paper bag in which she had sent Jesse’s lunch to school with him, lying in a pile on the floor. Being the patient mother she is, she gave him the benefit of a doubt, thinking perhaps Jesse was simply saving the bags to reuse later – as I said, he always was thrifty, after all. She cautiously approached the pile, and was shocked and appalled to find that many of them still had leftover food in them, in some cases at least several days old. When she approached Jesse to inquire as to what on earth he must have been thinking by keeping these perishable foods in an unrefrigerated, dark, closet floor, searching for some reasonable answer that would convince her that her son was still in touch with reality, his response was, “If I throw them away, then I will never see them again.”

This is another of the most important attributes of my brother; he found value and virtue in everything. He threw almost nothing away, which may have annoyed us at times, but once we understand the reason he did it, it is difficult to blame him. He saw everything as useful – all it needed was the right attention. Just a few weeks ago, he used some discarded boards from the backyard fence to build a sturdy set of steps to the trampoline, so that his nieces and nephews, and other children who came to the house could more easily climb onto it. He carefully measured and cut the wood, then securely put the steps together, and even stained the wood to ensure an attractive and lasting piece of work. Since we arrived in town, my daughter Avey has used the steps a dozen times, and I’m sure my son Carver, and any future children we have will also climb those steps to access the trampoline. In another example, while attending Brigham Young University, Jesse worked in the copy center of the Missionary Training Center. After going through a roll of lamination, there was always a sturdy cardboard cylinder left over. While most people would simply discard such a thing, Jesse saw its potential for greatness. After some creative tinkering, he managed to fashion two of these cardboard cylinders together into a pair of nun chucks. You might think that Jesse would make a nice set, and then leave it at that, but no; Jesse collected dozens, if not hundreds of these cardboard cylinders during his brief career at the copy center, and made several pairs of these nonfatal weapons. In fact, even these years after he graduated from BYU, when we searched through the contents of Jesse’s car after the accident, what should we find in the trunk, but a few sets of these cardboard nun chucks.

Jesse’s creative talents were extensive. He was a quick learner, and could master whatever he put his mind to in a very short time. He sometimes used this to turn ordinary trash into weapons, but most of the time he used his keen intellect, creative juices, and skilled hands to create. About ten years ago, he decided he wanted to build his own computer. So he did. When the bathroom tiles were coming apart at my mother’s house a few years ago, Jesse re-tiled the whole thing. When there was a plumbing problem, Jesse tackled it. If the sprinkler system acted up, Jesse dug right down in to find the problem. If his car needed repairs and he could access the equipment, he would research it, and do it. He excelled at several of his jobs throughout the years, involving work as varied as food service, customer service, supervising adult men with learning disabilities in a residential setting, and many others. He was an excellent cook – if you ever tasted a meal he made, your taste buds probably did not let you forget it easily.I often consulted with Jesse on projects I had, because I knew that if anyone would know what to do, it would be him. And if he didn’t know the answer, he would find it.

Jesse was an amateur artist as well. During college, he purchased a sculpting tool, and over the years made beautiful designs, carving flowers into wood, and even crafting a tombstone for the family dog when her time came. He spent hours learning to make intricate origami shapes. He took on crocheting and made this very silly hat. Ever since he was young, all he needed to keep himself occupied during a dull meeting was an Etch-a-Sketch, a ball of silly putty, or a pencil and a scrap of paper, and he would create a small masterpiece.

Which leads me into the last attribute of which I will speak today; his gift with children. Of all of Jesse’s talents, and in many ways because of them, Jesse’s most lasting and cherished was his ability to relate to children. Jesse had a way of being simultaneously entertaining, safe, and encouraging with children. Wherever he went, children flocked to him. They were always excited to see what new jokes he would tell, or what wonderful shape he could fold a piece of paper into, or how perfectly he would play the part in a new imaginary world they wanted to create. Jesse was a pure delight to children all around him. It is largely due to Jesse that my own daughter, shortly after she could speak, began to refer to my brothers collectively as “the silly boys”. Whenever they were around, and especially Jesse, she knew she was in for a treat. I believe that Jesse’s talent with children was there for the same reason that Jesse collected what others might see as useless garbage, and why he meticulously worked to turn ordinary things into extraordinary things. And I want to place a great deal of emphasis on this point. I know many of you may forget most of what I’ve said here after a few days, but if I may give you just one single thing to ponder about Jesse’s life, it is this. I believe that Jesse truly saw each child as a son or daughter of the divine. To him, it was not just some nice thought that you hear in Sunday School, but it was literal. I believe that, just as Jesse looked at an ordinary, boring cardboard tube and saw deeper purpose, hours of use, and entertainment, I believe that he saw each child as having limitless potential. How could he not dedicate himself to cultivating that potential? For reasons I will not go into, he had a profound understanding of a child’s need for a safe haven. Jesse looked at a child as a seed that was destined, by design, to become something glorious – they simply need the proper nourishment to grow and thrive as  adults. I believe that he thought of children as predisposed to excellence, and that it is only through the failings of the world that this course toward excellence is detracted.And he worked tirelessly to become a subtle, but influential source of that much-needed nourishment. He listened to children when they spoke, and heard what they were saying. Rather than arguing, and interrupting, he allowed them to express themselves. When they cried, he felt what they felt, and rather than ordering or pressuring, he validated their emotions. “Yes, it is hard to clean up when playing is so much more fun”, “You’re right, it can be hard to sit still when there is so much else you could do”, “It’s okay to feel sad when things don’t go the way you wanted them to.”I am convinced that his perspective on childhood is why he chose the career path he did, and I am confident that he would have thrived therein. By all reports, he was a blessing to the children who knew him, and will continue to be as others, like I, have learned from his example. Even though my one-year-old will have no memory of Jesse, I will be sure that he is not free of Jesse’s influence. I will strive to be that same haven, that support, and that teacher to my children just as Jesse was.

Now, I’d like to briefly direct my remarks to the children who are here. You children who knew my brother, please listen closely and remember what I am about to say. Thank you for being his friend. For every smile he brought to your face, and every laugh, for each moment you were amazed at what he could do with his scraps of paper and wads of silly putty, you were vitally important to him. He felt like each time that happened, he was fulfilling a little more of his purpose in life. He was happiest in those small moments, because he knew he was important to you. And so I say it one more time: Thank you for being my brother’s friend.

The things I have shared with you this morning are just a glimpse into Jesse. I wish we had the months and years it would take to adequately describe him. Luckily for most of us, we had those years with him. Although we will miss Jesse George Ricks, he will always be with us, in one form or another.

In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.