Jonny’s Story

Jonathan Michael Hackett known to everyone as “Jonny” was born on October 7th 2017. Jonny was our second born and has a brother Bobby just 14 months older. Jonny came into this world fast and furious from the beginning; being born at 36 weeks but healthy and perfect. Jonny lived life like he had already done it before. He was riding a bike without training wheels at just 2 years old and did it with ease. We always commented on how advanced he was and how he would be something special when he was older; perhaps a special in the military. Jonny had a drive to be good at everything he did. He would always ask to do what you were doing ; eager to learn.

Jonny had a temper on him. If things didn’t go his way; he screamed, smashed toys, or took it out on our walls. But he also had such a soft side. He was the best hugger and if you got down and asked for a hug, he would run as fast as possible for that hug. Jonny was attached to his mom and loved to sneak a lick in when giving daddy a kiss. He was awesome and so handsome. His best friend was his big brother Bobby; they were never separated. They played, fought, loved, and were known as the Hackett boys.

July 22nd we woke up like any other day. Daddy went to work for a short detail, Bobby was attending camp so Jonny was home with me. Jonny spent the day riding Bobby’s new quad; which he was obsessed with. He went for a run with me and played like any other day. Daddy came home at 2, they mowed the lawn together and played catch; making sure he was told it was a good throw every time. We ate dinner and left for family night at Bobby’s camp Clark. They were so excited for family night.

At 715 pm the kids wanted to go swimming. The weather wasn’t great but all the other kids were doing it. I changed Jonny into his bathing suit and Daddy strapped him with a life jacket. Jonny ran in the water; (first punching daddy in the private) and began to swim out to his friends.  Jonny was a great swimmer and swam on a regular basis so we weren’t worried. Within seconds daddy noticed something was off. Jonny looked at him with a face of fear. He asked if he was good which he did not respond. He ran in and grabbed him within seconds. Everything from that point on didn’t make sense. Jonny did not drowned, but he wasn’t waking up…..Jonny was airlifted to Children’s which is the number one hospital in the world.

Children’s hospital asked what he hit his head on….nothing…..further scans showed a small bleed in the back of his brain stem consistent with an aneurysm that we weren’t aware of. Our healthy 3.5 year old wouldn’t wake up. We were left speechless and completely devastated at how this can happen with NO symptoms or warnings.

Jonny never complained of head aches, never had any signs that something was wrong. How would we know? It’s a very helpless feeling as parents.

For the next two days we held onto our boy letting family and friends say goodbye. Jonny took his last breath at 12:27 am on July 24th with me and daddy right next to him. We smothered his little body with kisses telling him how sorry we were that we couldn’t save him. It was the worst day of our life. We had to leave the hospital without our child and explain to his brother he would not be coming home. 

Jonny was so loved and is so missed. Our mission now is to help other families in the icu. The only way we can fathom continuing on is to do something in our sons name so people continue to say his name. We have started a non profit in his name and will spread love to families on the worst days of their life.