Life After a Tragedy

By: Andrea Brown, Gazette Telegraph

Two months after getting a marriage license, 21-year-old Jackie Lee awaits another official paper with the name of her childhood sweetheart:

His death certificate.

Josh Lee died Jan. 11 at age 23. The couple's 3-year-old son found his lifeless body on the living room floor.

The El Paso County Coroner's Office has not released a cause of death, pending toxicology results. His widow said he has gone to the emergency room for a few days earlier for treatment of an inflamed pancreas, then left against medical advice.

"He said he felt well enough," she said, her voice trailing off. "I'm still in shock, in denial. I keep thinking he is going to walk through the door."

The couple have three children- Josiah, 3, Isaiah, 2, and 3-month-old Candice.

"They say, 'Mommy, it's OK. Don't cry.' My grandma and my mom help me our a lot," said Jackie Lee, who plans to get family grief counseling. The Springs Rescue Mission and friends are trying to assist the young family, and a fund has been established for their needs.

Jackie has been waiting for the death certificate so she can apply for survivor benefits for the children.

Things have never been easy for the family. Jackie Lee quit school after ninth grade to raise the kids while Josh worked laying sod with her uncles. The family of five recently moved from a rental home near downtown and were staying with her mother in a crowded apartment west of Interstate 25 until it could afford another place.

Though it might not seem like it, things were looking up for the couple. The had a car and a honeymoon.

They were married at November's annual community Thanksgiving banquet at City Auditorium. The Rescue Mission put on the dinner- and the wedding.

"Our first-ever wedding," mission development worker Kristin Oxendahl said. "It fell into our laps. It's not our normal thing."

Actually, the nonprofit ministry proposed a wedding when the unmarried couple were chosen over other applicants to receive the donated 1994 Dodge minivan given away at the banquet.

Marriage was something they'd talked about.

"But we never got around to it," Jackie Lee said. "We'd been together for five years. We never thought we were going to leave one another."

The mission did the works, from providing the dress, cake, wedding rings, and flowers to filling the minivan with presents.

The Rev. Joe Vazquez, Springs Rescue Mission CEO, performed the ceremony on stage with about 400 people cheering.

Jackie says she had never seen Josh in a suit before.

"He fought it at first," she said. "Josh always liked to wear baggy clothes. He wanted to wear a Dickies outfit. We laughed about it afterwards."

The couple went on their honeymoon in early January, a week before he died.

She says if Josh had had his way, he'd have brought the kids along. "He didn't like to leave them," she said.

She was 8 when she met 10-year-old Josh in the west-side neighborhood around Zebulon Pike Elementary School. His sister was her best friend. The couple got together when she was 15.

"We started talking on the phone and hanging out," she said. "He took me out of the state for the first time. We went to Omaha."

It was a struggle to make it on his seasonal income. At times, she picked up work as a housekeeper and cashier, but mostly she was a homemaker. Medicaid covered doctor bills. Money was tight for rent. The family moved a lot. They went to the mission for commodities and baby items.

The mission director who married them conducted her husband's funeral. Five minutes before the service, she passed out from the stress and was taken to the hospital. The funeral was postponed until the next day.

Family and friends are collecting funds for Josh's burial and her living expenses. "I want to go to school to get my GED," she said.

Josh's childhood friend, Bryan Burch, hopes to sell a rap song he wrote. "It's a song for his wife to listen to. It is written like a letter; he's imagining her here to hear it," Burch said.

"He was always there rooting for us."

That's what he did for Jackie, too.

"A lot of who I am is because of him. He strengthened me up," she said. She watches as her toddler sons bustle around the kitchen, eating grapes and playing with the ones that roll on the floor.

"I have to be strong for them," she said.

Josiah smiles.

"Be strong!" he exclaims.