Founded in memory of Jordan Patricia Connell to help provide public awareness, and prevention of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome through comprehensive programs of Joining Organizations, Researchers and Doctors together for Answers Now. It was just an ordinary day, when my phone rang and it was our babysitter and I will never forget the words that she said “Jordan is not breathing” I lost my own breat
h at that moment. “The ambulance is taking her to Cypress Hospital”.
◦Jordan was 9 weeks old and passed away of SIDS (Sudden Infant Death Syndrome) on that Friday afternoon. We have never prayed so hard in our as we did in that room that evening. We sent text messages to all our friends to pray. We lost a piece of ourselves that day. There was this huge emptiness in side both of us and still is today.
◦As we drove home that horrible night from the hospital we looked up in the clouds, a big storm was hitting the area and the skies were all dark, all except for one small window of light, we felt that was a sign that our baby girl was looking down over us from Heaven.
◦We had her funeral in the lobby of the church and a dear friend who is a retired pastor did the service for us. It was amazing how many people came to our little girl’s funeral; most had never even met her. Randy talked about how her first performance was standing room only. In the memorial service the pastor talked a lot about “HOPE”, and how we need it to sustain us. Because we have faith in Christ we have hope for tomorrow that we will see her again.
◦We have taken that theme and have really tried to make it a part of our lives. I think we are different people today and are really paying more attention to God and putting him into our life every day. We listen to His word more and really try to apply it every day. We approach each day with the decision to either get up and be part of the world, or to hide and be sad. We have a little boy who needs his mom and dad. Life does go on and not a day goes by that we do not think about her.
◦We feel that there has to be something good to come from everything bad. That everyone has a purpose here on Earth and from this tragedy we are doing something positive. We have created the MBJ Foundation for SIDS to help Join Organization, Researchers and Doctors together for Answers Now for Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. It is her little way of helping out other babies, her own purpose. And is a way for us to transfer our sadness into a cause that will hopefully grow each year to be bigger, better and help find a cause and cure for SIDS. I started a blog to help get my thoughts out of my head and written down for others to read. It is kind of like an online journal of my thoughts. Maybe some other mom going through the same thing will read it and know that she is not alone.