JESSE HANUSE / HANMORE

“They said he’s gone,” she writes — and in that one breath, the whole world split open. December 24th will never be just a date again. It became the moment everything changed. The moment her son, her warrior, her sonshine, left this world behind.

Jesse was so many things — a father, a son, a protector, a spirit too big for one life. But if you ask what mattered most to him, you don’t have to look far. His children — Jaquinta, Jovelle, Selina, Zoey, and Kato — they were his world. He lit up around them. There was no hiding how deeply he loved them, how much of himself he poured into being their dad. To watch him with them was to see his soul in motion.

“If I could relive just one moment,” his mom says, “it would be watching him with his beautiful babies.” There’s pain in those words, but also something else — gratitude. That it happened. That she got to see it.

And if she could say one more thing, if grief gave her just a sliver of time back, she knows what it would be:
“I am so very proud of you. You were one strong warrior. I love you with all my life.”

Because he was strong. Jesse carried weight most people never saw. And even through that, he showed up with compassion, especially for the elders. He respected them deeply, instinctively. That was the kind of man he was — someone who honored those who came before, even as he fought battles of his own.

When he died, it wasn’t just her heart that broke — it was the whole shape of life. Grief didn’t knock. It crashed through the walls and remade everything.
“My world turned black,” she says. “I never thought I’d survive it.”

But somehow, even in that darkness, something pulled her forward. A presence. A promise. Maybe it was Jesse himself — guiding, steady, reminding her that giving up was never an option.

“I promised my son I’d be there for his babies,” she says. “I promised I would keep his memories alive.” And she has. With every breath, every step, every day she gets back up, she’s keeping that promise. Not because it’s easy — but because Jesse deserves to be remembered. Fully. Fiercely.

He is gone, but not gone.

He is still here — in his children’s eyes, in the wind that shifts when she speaks his name, in the strength she didn’t know she had until she needed it. She feels his love every day. And no matter how many Decembers pass, she’ll carry him with her. Always.

He was her crazy NDN. Her sonshine. Her heart.
And he always will be.

#29. Forever.