Jakob Walstead Franz

January 2018

“Your baby has a tumor lodged in his brain that is the size of a golf ball”. What!?? I thought he just had a bad case of the flu! We stood there in disbelief until the doctor showed us the proof ourselves on the CT Scan. That was in February 1982.

On July 10, 1981, our second son Jakob was born, 20 months after his brother Gentzy. It was a hot July in central Illinois and I was anxious for this baby, now ten days overdue to make his entrance. We were just finishing up our job as head residents at MacMurray College and would be heading to Westville, a small town three hours to the East where Gentz, who had just graduated from Illinois College, would be teaching third grade. The long awaited day finally came, and we readied ourselves to go to the hospital to have Jakob. Gentz gave me a priesthood blessing as he had before Gentzy’s birth and one of the things he said was, “Remember your temple covenants which will make this baby so special.” I gave no more thought to that….I just wanted to see this baby! A few difficult hours later,  our precious little son was born. He weighed in at 8 pounds plus a few ounces and had the cutest fuzziest blonde hair and fat cheeks. I was in love!!

He was such a good quiet baby. He stayed very still in his  baby seat while we cleaned out our apartment in the dorm at the college and packed up things for our move. We moved into a small apartment on the edge of Westville, a town of around 3000 located near Danville. My mother, feeling we needed a house for our growing family, helped us purchase a home on a nice corner on a quiet street with a good sized yard and shade trees. We settled in. Life was good. Gentz could walk down the street to the grade school where he taught and I was at home with my two babies, very content. Little did we know the trials that awaited our little family. Gentzy, who was always very active, kept us busy and laughing and he loved his younger brother, calling him “baby chicken” since he couldn’t say Jakob. We had a lot of visitors…our family visited, girls from our college where we had formed many friendships visited. Winter came and we realized that this house had little or no insulation and as luck would have it, it was a very cold winter. So we dressed warmly, bought a kerosene heater for our living room and draped the windows as much as we could to stay warm.

In February of 1982, Jakob began experiencing problems. He started throwing up. At first I attributed this to a stomach virus, but there was no fever. After a period of a few days, we took him to the doctor, expecting that he would need an antibiotic or something. The news we received was anything but that. The doctor, concerned about the size of his head in relation to his body, did a CT Scan. Back to when we stood there in disbelief.  We didn’t even have time to think. Jakob was taken by ambulance to Champaign, about 40 minutes away and seen by a neurosurgeon. The next few hours were a blur. Parents were called to help with Gentzy and to receive the news. Our ecclesiastical leader, President Larson was called and asked to come administer a blessing to Jakob before surgery, and Gentz and I just tried to wrap our minds around all of this. Calls were made, blessing of strength was given and I was alone with my baby before surgery. As they wheeled him off, the last sound I heard him make on this earth was Ba Ba Ba Ba…he must have been hungry. I felt as if my heart was going to break. How was I ever going to be able to stand this?

But, when one in is in these situations, what choice do you have? Stand it you do, minute by minute, step by awful step. We spent the many hours during surgery in the chapel of the hospital most of the time praying  that God would guide the surgeon’s hand as our stake president had said in his blessing. My sister Julie who lived nearby came to be with us for support. Gentz’s parents were tending Gentzy and my parents lived far away in Minnesota.  When Dr. Belber, the neurosurgeon came out and told us the tumor had been removed and that it was a “hero surgery”  we were so grateful and felt the worst was behind us. He warned us that there could still be problems but I couldn’t see what problems there could be! That awful tumor was gone. Our baby was still alive! When we saw Jakob, his little head and face were so swollen and there was no movement. My heart plummeted. Surely, this will get better I thought and prayed that it would. It didn’t. We were in the hospital with him until Easter in April. I sat with him every day, holding him as good friends and family took care of Gentzy. I would sing to him a Primary song I hold dear to this day, “My Heavenly Father loves me”. I would sing it to him, look out the hospital window and dream of the day when this little tow haired son of mine would walk and play with other children and all would be right again in our world. I was convinced that would happen. If I just prayed hard enough. If I just had enough faith, he could be healed. That is the direction my mind and my life took from that time on. Once his pediatrician told me that Jakob “had no brain left”….I ignored him.Don’t take away my hope I wanted to scream at him! What right have you to take away my hope?  And so I prayed, and watched and waited and studied what I could do to help regenerate brain cells. And I sang to and loved my Jakob lying ever so still in my lap. 

During this time, all was not so well at home. Gentz had said when we were first married that the worst thing he could imagine was to lose a child and/or to lose his job. It looked as if both things were happening within the space of a year. The teachers at Gentz’s school had gone on strike in the Fall and much against  his good judgement, he joined with them, not wanting to turn his back on his friends at school. This strike lasted three weeks which we could ill afford as his salary was only $10,000 a year anyway. People in the community were very kind to us once the word of Jakob’s illness got around and we received money in the mail and at our doorstep…just a few of the tender mercies that God sent to us during this time. Eventually it became clear that Gentz was not going to be rehired in the Fall as he had been hired, unbeknownst to us, to just fill in for a maternity leave. So, the summer of 1982 found us with a house, a very sick baby and no job in the future. Gentz’s worst fears were realized. 

We made the decision to return to our beloved Jacksonville where we had family members and knew the community well. Gentz got a job and I stayed behind to get the house ready to sell with our two babies. My friend Jacquie came over to help me pack and as I sat there surrounded by boxes, active little Gentzy and sick little Jakob I realized I couldn’t do this without Gentz. So, I left the house to be sold on its own and moved into Gentz’s parents’ home until our house sold. We were there a couple of months which was hard. How I longed for our own place! Gentz’s parent were so very dear but it just wasn’t like being in one’s own home of course. But at least we were together and that was all I wanted. 

I was of course still determined that this baby of ours was going  to get well and studied about “brain patterning”, doing exercises to help the brain regenerate brain cells. There was a doctor in Chicago who specialized in this and so I made an appointment. That was in November. Finally one evening that month while sitting in a women's meeting at church, they read the scripture from Proverbs 3:5-6 "Trust in the Lord  with all thine heart and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge Him and He shall direct thy paths." I sat straight up in my chair; I had been so busy determining that I was going to do whatever it took to get this baby well, the thought had never crossed my mind, that possibly, just possibly, Jakob wasn't going to have to live this earth life. Maybe the plan for him was to come to earth, get a body, experience his parents' love for a time and then return to the arms of a loving Father in Heaven. Trust Jesus!! Trust him with your baby…he loves him more than you do!

From that point on, I was able to surrender just a little bit more and became willing to accept God's will in this matter with our baby. The appointment with the patterning doctor in Chicago never happened as Jakob had gotten sick. Then, just a few months later in February, dear Jakob went to the hospital for the last time.He seemed to be in pain and I called Gentz to tell him I was taking him in but this time something seemed different from all the other times we had rushed him to the hospital. It was as if he were far far away. I told Gentz on the phone, “I think he is dying.”  I took Gentzy to Gramma and Grampa Franz and went to the hospital to perform my ever so familiar vigil of sitting, waiting, holding Jakob and singing. After Gentz got off work, he took my place in the rocking chair and I picked up Gentzy. We had made Valentine’s cookies as it was the 14th to deliver to our various neighbors and church members. As I ran in and out of the car up to people’s doors, Gentzy just seemed to get weaker and weaker and finally wouldn’t get out of the car anymore but laid down in the back seat. In retrospect I think he intuitively knew that Jakob was dying. 

That next morning about 5 a.m.we received the call that he had died. Off to the hospital once more for the final time and we were met at the door of his room by a nurse who said to us kindly, “You know he is gone?” I thought…gone? Where has he gone to?? You mean he has died? Let’s use the proper terms here! Just let me in there to see him.  We cradled our dear sweet boy for the last time but not for long enough. Soon, the nurse returned and said that the undertaker was here ready to take his body. I’m not ready, I wanted to cry out. Leave me alone. Let me hold him. Let me sing to him. Let me just sit here for as long as I want!! But instead, not wanting to upset anyone’s “schedule” we wrapped him in his blanket and walked the long walk to where they were waiting to take him. As we passed the nurses in their various stations, they all stopped chatting with one another and looked at us. I am sure we were a pathetic, sad sight. Two young bewildered parents, carrying their beloved son for the last time. 

Did I grieve even though I knew that Jakob was finally at peace with no more pain  and that we would see him again in the next life? Yes, of course I did. We had been married in the temple for time and all of eternity and our children would be ours forever as long as we lived faithfully. Trust Jesus. But oh,how I was going to miss this darling boy! But yet, I knew that he was now free from grief and pain that had wracked his tiny body for the last year of his life. As we dealt with the arrangements the next few days, I had the strongest feeling of comfort and peace. I was surrounded as if by a warm cuddly blanket. I just kept thinking, "trust in the Lord and lean not unto thine own understanding." When I walked into the funeral home to dress him in the sweet little white outfit his Aunt Katrina had made for him complete with his initials embroidered on it, I saw his body and knew that his spirit had left but lived on. Trust Jesus. 

Jakob's spirit was not inhabiting his body anymore but he was still very much alive. We will see him again. We will see all those we love in this life again...they have just gone ahead. I held this so close to my heart during those hours and days ahead and I also remembered the words of Gentz’s blessing when I went into the hospital to have Jakob…”Remember the temple covenants you have made which make this baby so special.” Of course! Those temple covenants are that we are together forever as a family, that our children, each precious one, is sealed to us for time and all eternity. Oh what peace that brought to my grieving mother’s heart!

Many people came…from Westville, from Jacksonville and surrounding areas to pay their respects. The visitation was long and tiring and is nothing but a blur. One of our dear friends Jerry Hymen from Springfield who had lost a child himself came and sat nearby the whole time. 

At the funeral, one of my dear friends sang the Primary song that I always sang to him in the hospital, but she couldn’t make it through, so another friend from church in Springfield with a beautiful voice stood up and sang with her. How grateful I was to her for that because i so wanted to hear that song as I was saying my formal farewell to my little Jakob. Our dear Stake president spoke at the funeral of Jakob being a “brave little warrior” who came to experience love and to experience pain and then return home to his Father in Heaven. Our bishop spoke as well and referred to the scripture in the Doctrine and Covenants, chapter 42, verse 45: “Thou shalt live together in love, insomuch that thou shalt weep for the loss of them that die, and more especially for those that have not hope of a glorious resurrection.” God understood! He understood my pain and that we would grieve..we lOVE our family members, we weep when they die even though we know that we will see them again! As our newly ordained prophet, Russel M. Nelson has stated: 

"Our limited perspective would be enlarged if we could witness the reunion on the other side of the veil, when doors of death open to those returning home...We need not look upon death as an enemy..To us and to you, our loved ones may be just as close as the next room-separated only by the doors of death." (Ensign, May 1992)

And so, even with this eternal perspective, we wept. At the cemetery, his little white casket was set near where he would be buried in “Baby Land”. As people quietly and reverently left to go to their cars, I was encouraged to leave as well by my parents. NO I wanted to shout! You go back to the house! You take care of all of the people there! Leave me here with Gentz and Gentzy and Jakob! I don’t want my family separated yet! I’M NOT READY FOR THIS!! But, submissively, again, not wanting to interfere with “schedules and plans” I left, turning around and looking out the back window as his casket got smaller and smaller and I moved further and further away from my baby. Trust Jesus. 

As I look back over the last 36 years I think of my family who has gone on ahead into that spiritual realm since then.... Gentz’s sister Gretchen, mother, my father, my dear sister Becki, and my  inlaws whom I love with all my heart as if they were my own parents. I look forward to that glorious reunion with them....a reunion made possible by a loving Father in Heaven who sent His son to die for us that we might all have eternal life and live forever. This is worth striving for to move forward with hope and gladness and joy in spite of temporary separations. For this I am grateful! This I know. Earth life is a temporary dwelling place for us....We will all leave this existence and enter a far greater one. And we will be with those we love. I will see my baby Jakob, my brave little warrior again! How grateful I am for that. Trust Jesus...keep trusting Jesus.