MIAMI — Joshua Jean thought his wife and best friend, Santina Jean, would be coming home to help him and their 10-year-old daughter finish setting up newborn Aniyah’s side of the room.
“She was with me here when we built this crib,” Jean said. “So this part of her means a lot.”
Instead, the Miami-Dade Fire Rescue firefighter is mourning the loss of his wife after she died last weekend following a battle with a rare form of cancer.
“Losing the love of my life and breaking my daughter’s heart in the same day was very hard,” Jean said.
A photo taken before her death shows Santina holding and feeding the couple’s newborn daughter, who remains in the neonatal intensive care unit.
Jean said doctors waited until the baby reached a safe gestational age before delivering her and attempting to save Santina.
“Fortunately, with a good team at Baptist, they waited to a good gestational age so that way they can get our baby and try to save my wife,” Jean said. “They did great on both ends. Everything was on an uprise, but then the leukemia was aggressive, so it overwhelmed her eventually.”
The family kept their battle private while close friends worked behind the scenes to create an online fundraiser for Jean. The fundraiser has raised more than $100,000.
“The prayers was enough. And I know it’s working to get us up every day after this,” Jean said. “I’ll figure out the word I could put it into to tell you how much I appreciate that. But just thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you.”
Through the heartbreak, Jean said the memories he will hold onto most are Santina’s smile, her laugh and the joy she brought to every day.
“Every day she laughed. Every single day,” he said. “Hardest day, best day, quiet day. If we only said three words, it was a joke that made us laugh. So yeah, my laughing partner for sure.”
Jean said he and his wife spent every day laughing together from December until her death last Saturday.
Jean wrote a letter saying thank you to the hospital staff and his co-workers who helped him through everything.
You can watch Jean read the letter below:
He hopes Aniyah will be able to come home in the next few weeks. As for the fundraiser, Jean said he has not looked at it and does not know the current total, but said the money will help him spend more time with his daughters.
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