Joyful Memories of Jamall
Elmer Jamall Stephen Augustine Jr. was known to family and friends as Jamall or G-Wells. Jamall was full of love and life. His friends told me they called him G-Wells because he was always happy in spirit and gave his support with a smile on his face.
Five months before Jamall passed, he had been feeling tired and sleepy. He had a cold and flu-like symptoms. I told him to go to the doctor because I felt something besides the flu was going on with his body. A history of diabetes runs in my family, and I felt he had some of the symptoms of a diabetic. He promised me he would go to the doctor the following day. The next day was too late. I would never see him conscious again.
His fiancée came home that night and was unable to wake him. I was in my bedroom when she called me to help her wake him. We gave him CPR and called for an ambulance. Jamall had drifted into a coma. I knew my baby was gone when the ambulance arrived. My world fell apart that day. A mother knows when her child is gone. I didn’t have enough strength to go to the hospital because I knew in my heart my baby had left me.
John, my oldest son, and family members went to the hospital and 30 minutes later he called me to say Jamall didn’t make it. He appeared so healthy and strong. The doctor said his blood sugar was 22 and didn’t understand how he survived that long without medical treatment. He was a diabetic and didn’t know it. His cause of death was a heart attack.
Jamall was a donor. He had signed up on the state organ and tissue donor registry when he renewed his driver’s license. That surprised everyone. I was unaware of him being a donor because he kept it to himself. Mid-America Transplant contacted me because they wanted to use his gifts for a recipient. I gave Mid-America Transplant approval to use his organs and tissue because he signed up on the registry to donate his organs and tissue to help others survive. I cried and felt pain and joy. Pain because at that moment, it really hurt to know my baby was gone. Joy because he was able to help others with his tissue and organs.
I felt so happy knowing Jamall still lives on in someone else’s body and helped them survive to live their lives to the fullest.
I received a letter from MTS seven months later saying my son’s tissue helped save a 45-year-old female. The recipient thanked me for allowing my son’s tissue to be used to help her with her illness. Without his tissue, she said she wouldn’t have survived her illness. That was 2011. In 2012, Jamall helped save a man in his 50s. The recipient thanked me again for Jamall’s donation that helped save his life. I felt so happy knowing Jamall still lives on in someone else’s body and helped them survive to live their lives to the fullest.
Nothing has been the same since that night. Although it’s difficult today to see beyond the sorrow, looking back in memory has helped comfort us tomorrow. Joyful memories of Jamall have helped comfort the family’s loss. He leaves behind a five-year-old daughter, a fiancée who loves him very much, family and friends.
Sincerely,
Katherine Sipes
Jamall’s mother
