Posted on 12/22/2009 6:16:01 AM PST by uptoolate
Child flown home by FedEx passes away By CELIA DEWOODY celiad@harrisondaily.com Published: Tuesday, December 22, 2009 6:07 AM Jada Harper, a little girl whom people in this community and across the nation had taken to their hearts, has died.
The terminally ill child was flown home from Texas this fall on a special medical flight paid for by FedEx Freight so she could spend her last days with her family,
Click image to enlarge CONTRIBUTED PHOTO Jada Harper enjoys a horseback ride last spring, before her illness was diagnosed. The seven-year-old daughter of Savannah and Jason Surface passed away at her family’s home in Green Forest on Friday, Dec. 18.
Before her illness, she had been a student at Green Forest Elementary School.
Jada, who had been diagnosed in June with an inoperable malignant tumor on her brain, was flown on a Medway air ambulance, staffed with a medical team, to the Boone County Regional Airport Sept. 25 from Houston, where she had been treated at M. D. Anderson Cancer Center since July. At the time of the flight, the child was in a coma, with a ventilator breathing for her.
After her medical condition had reached the point where nothing else could be done to help her, Jada’s parents wanted to bring her back home from Texas so that she could be near her family, but they were unable to afford the special medical flight that was required. FedEx Freight, headquartered in Harrison, stepped in and arranged for the air ambulance and footed the $11,000 bill.
* For a month or so, Jada was taken care of in the Hospice House in Harrison, then the family was able to bring her home to a house they had rented in Green Forest, according to her grandmother, Wanda Surface.
The family had lived in Oak Grove until Jada got sick last summer, then the young family moved in with Jason’s family — his mother, Wanda, and sister, Brandy Surface — in Batavia.
Wanda said Jason and Savannah rented a house in Green Forest this fall, and that is where they moved Jada, who was by then able to be off the ventilator. Wanda said she lived there also, to help.
“Savannah’s mother, Jessica Miller, came and stayed, too,” Wanda said. “She was wonderful.”
Wanda said being able to have Jada at home rather than in faraway Texas was a blessing to the family.
“It meant everything to us, getting to bring her home,” she said.
“We were very saddened to hear of her passing, but we’re pleased we were able to help Jada have some quality time with her family and friends,” said Ken Reeves of Harrison, FedEx Freight’s vice-president and general counsel, Monday afternoon.
Jada’s grandmother said she thought Jada might have regained consciousness to some extent after being brought home.
“I think maybe she did,” Wanda said. “We’d take her into the living room and put cartoons on, and she’d look at them. And when you’d talk to her, she’d look at you.”
The Surface family also has two younger children, Lyndon, 4, and Gracelyn, 2, who were able to spend time with their big sister.
Speaking of the younger children, Wanda said, “They’re too young to really understand. They just know that Jada went to Heaven.”
Jada’s dad, Jason Surface, spoke to the Daily Times Monday evening to express the appreciation he and his wife and family feel for the way the community reached out to Jada and to all of them.
“A big thanks,” he said. “They’ll never know how much we appreciate what everybody has done — FedEx, my team members at Tyson’s, so many friends.”
Asked what Jada being flown home from Texas meant to them, Jason said, “It meant the world. It meant she could go peacefully around people who loved her. For the two months she was with us, people would come and hang out with her, read her books ... it meant the world.”
Jason said Jada died peacefully.
“We were all with her,” he said.
After the Daily Times’ Sept. 26 story about FedEx flying Jada home was picked up by the Drudge Report, a national news Web site that gets millions of hits a day, hundreds of comments from people across the U. S. poured into the Daily Times Web site, expressing their concern about Jada and her family and sending good wishes and prayers.
A fund was set up at the First National Bank of Green Forest to help the young family.
Funeral services are scheduled for this morning, Tuesday, Dec. 22, at 10 a.m. at Alpena Assembly of God Church, with burial at Maple Leaf Cemetery under the direction of Christeson Funeral Home.
See Jada’s obituary on Page 6A.
God bless and comfort this new angel and her grieving family.
A Christmas Angel....
Bittersweet.
She will be missed but we know where she is.
She is in heaven.
Prayers for the whole family. I cannot imagine what they are going through.
For context, can someone identify the state where this child lived?
God bless her family in their time of grief.
My heartfelt condolences go out to the family. May God bless them all.
I get so upset with people that villianize corporations.
Corporations are just people, and they are often full of people that do very good things. Hollywood and computer games love to cast them as “evil”, but they make our american way of life possible and pleasant.
Did they route her through Memphis overnight?
You’re bad.
Poor little girl. Too bad she didn’t have ObamaCare. Should have already been euthanized.
Or aborted.
Better yet, a forced abortion.
In a re-education camp.
Ah, yes ObamaCare. The sound of bureaucrats shuffling paperwork, the barbed wire, the screams of homeschooling parents undergoing attitude adjustments ...
RIP.
Arkansas.
Someone from Arkansas should write Senator Lincoln and tell her how the “new” HC Bill would have denied this child Medical Attention and she’d have been given pain pills and euthanized like a sick puppy.
Ben Nelson’s quip is definitely timely “...it’s like going home and getting bit by the family dog,” Nelson said. In this case the family dog’s puppy would have been put down.
Prayers for the family incoming.
God our Father,
Your power brings us to birth,
Your providence guides our lives,
and by Your command we return to dust.
Lord, those who die still live in Your presence,
their lives change but do not end.
I pray for the Savannah and Jason Surface family,
relatives and friends,
and for Jada Harper who is now in Your Presence.
In company with Christ,
Who died and now lives,
may Jada rejoice in Your kingdom,
where all her tears are wiped away.
May Jada sing Your praise forever and ever.
Keep her family close to your heart so that they, too,
Will one day join Jada to praise You forever and ever.
Amen.
Me too.
I’m glad her family got their time with their little girl.
Prayers for her sweet soul and for her grieving family.
Jada Aliece Harper, 7, Green Forest
Tuesday, December 22, 2009 6:07 AM
Jada Aliece Harper, 7, of Green Forest, died Friday, Dec. 18 (2009) at home.
Funeral service will be at 10 a.m. Tuesday, Dec. 22, at Alpena Assembly of God Church with Pastor Chris Barrera and Brother Jeremy Youngblood officiating. Visitation was from 6 to 8 p.m. Monday, Dec. 21, at Roller-Christeson Funeral Home. Burial will be at Maple Leaf Cemetery. Pallbearers will be Randy Tilley, Jeremiah Harper, Jonathan Walker, J.D. Harper and Isaac Brown. Honorary pallbearer include Dr. Sharon Leslie, Sara Sears, Pat Reed, all Hospice staff, Green Forest Elementary School, FedEx Freight, Kelly Madewell, Tiffany Gilliam and Tysons Team Members.
The daughter of Jason and Savannah Harper Surface was born Sept. 1, 2002, at Harrison. Jada was a student at the Green Forest Elementary School.
She was preceded in death by a sister, Lillian Grace Surface.
Jada is survived by her parents, Jason and Savannah Surface of the home; a brother, Lyndon Surface and a sister, Gracelyn Surface, both of the home; grandparents, Ben and Jessica Miller; grandmother, Wanda Pannu; great-grandmother, Ethel Harper; uncles, Alex Harper; and aunts, Danielle Gerg and Brandy Singh.
Online condolences may be left at www.rollerfuneralhomes.com.
http://harrisondailytimes.com/articles/2009/12/22/obituaries/doc4b301c1a4c338479890974.txt
Jada has indeed flown home. Prayers for peace, strength and understanding to her family and friends at Christmas.
Prayers lifted.
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