OPINION:
Jessie Rees should have celebrated her 27th birthday with her loving family and friends on April 8, but doctors diagnosed terminal cancer when she was only 11.
Before she died a year later, she created “Joy Jars” to support children like her in the fight for their lives against pediatric cancer.
Jessie, who lived her maxim “Never Ever Give Up” and whose middle name was Joy, filled her Joy Jars with toys, games and activities.
To honor her memory, Jessie’s family created the Jessie Rees Foundation, which has distributed hundreds of thousands of Joy Jars to cancer-stricken children worldwide.
My sons and I have been supporting the Jessie Rees Foundation for the past four years to honor my late wife, Kim, who died from cancer in 2021.
My sons and I never met Jessie, but we feel her presence, especially while stuffing Joy Jars at our local mobile Joy Jar events and when we volunteered at the Jessie Rees Foundation Joy Jar factory in California. Jessie inspires me and my sons to do our best, especially on the days that matter most to children fighting cancer.
By never ever giving up, Jessie imparted three consequential life lessons, which my sons have embraced as part of their journey into adulthood.
First, most children have faced some adversity in their lives, most commonly on the sports field or perhaps in the classroom and not, God forbid, from anything like the unimaginable trauma to which our family and the Rees family were subjected.
Cancer wants to break down and overwhelm the patient, making fighting back feel impossible and pointless. Yet demonstrating extraordinary inner strength and perseverance, Jessie found the key to confronting cancer by building resilience for herself and her cohort of children stricken with cancer.
The word resilience, which comes from the Latin “resilio,” meaning to “spring back,” is exactly what overcoming adversity with Jessie’s “Never Ever Give Up” spirit is all about.
Second, Jessie connected with something larger than herself. In spite of arduous cancer treatments, she had the energy and empathy to devote so much of her remaining time on this earth to helping other children and creating a path to philanthropy, which my sons and thousands of dedicated volunteers continue to follow to this day.
As children grow into adults, they should spend time reflecting on, understanding and appreciating the reasons behind their increasingly significant life choices. They should be asking themselves the most fundamental question: Why am I choosing this and not some other path?
Jessie created Joy Jars because that was how she chose to fight cancer and help other children suffering the same cruel, arbitrary fate.
Third, Jessie showed us how to rally our community in service to those desperately in need of care and encouragement. At the 2014 ESPYs, ESPN anchor Stuart Scott, who died from cancer in 2015, recounted that he had just been released from the hospital after a seven-day stay that included four surgeries.
“I couldn’t fight,” Scott recounted, “but doctors and nurses could. The people that I love and my friends and family — they could fight.”
Fighting cancer, Scott emphasized, is “not a solo venture” but rather “something that requires support.”
I internalized those three life lessons during a decades-long career at the CIA, but my sons have the benefit of learning them in their youth from Jessie Rees, a peer role model.
Of course, no one signs their name to the Joy Jars they stuff. Anonymous giving elevates selflessness and humanity. After a full day stuffing Jessie’s Joy Jars, my sons always feel a sense of righteous accomplishment from having spent their time in altruistic service above self.
Were it not for Jessie’s call to action, the hundreds of our friends and family who gathered together for mobile Joy Jar events would never have experienced the opportunity to bond in a sacred mission.
The child who opens a Joy Jar knows only that someone they have never met cares about raising their spirits and resilience during the most trying of times.
That’s the extraordinary trail Jessie blazed to such genuine and meaningful philanthropy, where the joy a child experiences opening a Joy Jar flows right back to the person who stuffed it.
My sons and I never had the honor of celebrating a birthday with Jessie, but last week we celebrated her sacred life, which will always mean so much to ours.
• Daniel N. Hoffman is a retired clandestine services officer and former chief of station with the Central Intelligence Agency. His combined 30 years of government service included high-level overseas and domestic positions at the CIA. He has been a Fox News contributor since May 2018. He can be reached at danielhoffman@yahoo.com.
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