(jess crying) - he still loves ya. - it sounds, it sounds strong. sounds good. (no audio)

(no audio) (soft music) my son, joe, he was my helper. i don't care what i was doing. if i was working in the yard, if i was building something, he was right there, always by my side. - every time i call him, you know, i'd say, "what are you doing? "oh, i'm helping a friend out." that's how life is, you know, is to help others." - we played all four years together, football. well, we weren't no football stars, i'll tell you that. but it was fun. so he was the class president, i was vice president. because i was a friend, he asked me to do it, you know? (laughing)

- i miss our friendship. you know, i could tell him anything. - [theresa] he used to talk to joe about his problems all the time. they all were so close together, almost like brothers. (soft music continues) - joe and i met at the grocery store that we worked at together, and he would come in on his days off. - [theresa] and when he fell in love, he fell in love. that was his true love. i think it was hers, too. - what attracted me to joe was his persistence. (laughing) he just seemed like a really good guy. and he didn't give up trying to ask me out. - she was a very strong woman in a lot of ways. you would never really see them argue, you'd see them kind of bicker every now and then,

but you can kind of see that becca was in charge, not necessarily joe, but they were a great couple. - joe proposed to me on christmas '99, and it was a total surprise. (rebecca gasps) is this it? - that's it, that's it right there you found it! you're the best thing that's happened to me, i just love you so much. will you marry me? - when? - will you? - yes! - oh, he even planned a big wedding, let me tell you. i don't know how many people he was gonna invite, i said, "i hope you could afford it!" he said, "mom, it's going to be big." - it's like joe had our whole future planned. - this is our new truck, joe! - [joe] let me go around. - here's the inside, here's me driving it.

back seat for the kids! he wanted to have, like a little family restaurant or bakery or, he didn't care what it was as long as it was just like family working together. - i was a proud peacock with my son that's going to be a police officer. - he, from a very young age, very, very young, was always into the guns. and he was always like trying to be the person who caught the bad guy. - i explained to him what i wanted to do and he said, "well, let me help you out." so he kind of took me under his wing. joe, actually, he was the pioneer for our group to try to get into law enforcement. - he caught my attention as a recruit in the academy. he was going to be, literally, a poster child for the police department. - my greatest memory of joe is in the academy when we had our oc and teargas day

because they want to make sure that you can defend yourself and defend your gun and take somebody into custody, should somebody attack you. they want you to get the full effect. and then we'd have to fight the bag for a minute and then we'd have to ground wrestle our partners who were going to attack us and try to take our guns. then we could go downstairs and rinse off. and they had, you know, giant fans and this water trough, and i just remember joe walks up to the camera and says. - it doesn't really burn that much. i've had chili that was hotter. i don't know what kind of oc that was, it might have been mild but-- - [cameraman] wasn't cajun? - i didn't feel the pepper. i feel fine. - only joe wasn't fazed, you know, he was just calm and good in the academy and, you know, you could tell he was going to be a great cop. - he donated blood, like every eight weeks, like, all the time. he got me and jesus to go one time.

i passed out, and then i never heard the end of it. i mean, even as a kids, you know, he talked about donating his body, like what 14, 15 year old kid talks about that? - he only had like two weeks left in the academy. and he says if anything happened to him out on the street, he wants to donate his organs. - he said, "mom, i want to save someone else's life. you know, i won't be around, but at least part of me will be out there." and he said, "you know what? i'm going to go talk to dad." before he went i told him, "he's going to give you a hard time." - the first thing that came to my mind is, oh my god, he could leave this world before me and i can't, i can't agree to that. and he turned around and he kind of gave me a half a smile. he goes, "you may say no right now, but i know you'll do the right thing." "besides," he goes, "i talked to mom,

and mom said was okay." i said, "i love you and the whole family, but you guys are 49%. i'm 51%. the answer is no, it's not going to happen." - and i said, "bye, be careful. come back to me." i always said that. and i went to work, and so did he. - we had recovered a stolen vehicle when we ended up locating that subject by the railroad tracks. - he just dropped. he had collapsed before the guy even got in the car. the suspect, of course, he is handcuffed at this point, but he didn't run, or didn't do anything other than try to help him. - you know, i've been a cop for quite a few years when that happened, but i'd never experienced anything like that. we did everything we could to help save joe, but

it just wasn't enough. (siren wailing) - they called me at work and they said, "hi, is this rebecca?" and i said, "yes." and they said, "joe suffered a seizure today and he's unresponsive at the hospital. do you need somebody to come get you?" and i said, "no, i'm fine, i can drive. but what do you mean?" - and we were just about getting ready to eat when the phone rang. and it was the chief of police. and all i could hear from teresa was, "no, no, not joe." and i grabbed that phone. i said, thinking like, who's who's calling at this time? well, we're having a nice day. and he goes, i'm sorry to tell you that something happened to your son. - i flew to uc davis.

there were officers everywhere. and then his whole family was there. and so i was, i was just like, this is something really bad. - i got there, i saw gordon. a bunch of other academy mates, i'm thinking, this is not good. then they kind of, kind of told us news. we went into the back. sorry. - i slid on my brakes, come in sideways. i kicked open the door. i couldn't get out of the car fast enough. they put us in this little room and the doctors' telling us "we believe your son has an aneurism." - i was in the room with the family when the doctors came in to say, "we really don't know right at this time. we are not going to give up. we're going to give joe everything we can." - and i got there and held his hand and was just like, "no, no, no, you're not going nowhere.

wake up." and it's like he squeezed a little bit or something, but um, that was it. that was it. - 24 hours comes, comes up and we're, we're asked to go to the little office again. and with a lot of love and compassion, tim, with the organ procurement organization, he asks us if we want to donate our son's organs. (slow piano music) all of a sudden i get a little flashback of the conversation we had about becoming a donor. i said "god, what do i do?" no sooner i got the words out, god gave me an answer. god told me if i honored my son,

i'd be honoring him. teresa was probably about five or six feet from me. her head was down like she was in shame. the doctors started going down the list of, "do you want to donate his his heart?" and i said, "yes," i could see teresa's body shaking. she shook and her head came up, and i could see a half a smile with tears running down her cheek, and i could read her lips, as she's telling me, "thank you for honoring our son." - you don't get a second chance. you have to do what your heart says. but you also have to think about your son, and what his heart said. - we went, um, to the back to uh, say goodbye to him and that was a pretty tough, a pretty tough thing to do.

because he was just a strong, strong person and just a strong personality. and it really hurt a lot of us. so, it still, it still affects me today. - [rebecca] we knew that at midnight that was it. and they were gonna take his parts. i had the most amazing dream of him that he came and slept with me and held me so tight, all night. and it was real to me. i know it was real. (children's choir singing) ♪ integrity ♪ and justice ♪ with tenderness ♪ you shall know - [arturo vegenas] he's not really gone.

in your heart and in your mind, you have windows to the memories that joe left us. open it up, remember him and cherish him. ♪ how long have i waited for your touch ♪ - i was just absolutely just blown away. joe, you're my hero. i love you, son. ♪ amazing grace, how sweet the sound ♪ - they had the honor guard lined up with their horses out front. they had police officers standing in a straight line. they had the motorcycles. that was so touching. ♪ but now i'm found ♪ was blind, but now i see

- [rebecca] it was the worst day of my life, for sure. (gentle music) - a lot of that is fog to me. i felt like i had to control myself. i didn't want to break down. and i'd come home and just bury my face into my pillow and cry my little heart out. i thought about committing suicide. i went out and i got joe's gun right here. i couldn't, or didn't wanna, handle the pain anymore. but i said, "god, if you're here with me, i need to know your presence." just when i grabbed the gun again, a little knock on my door

and it happened to be frank russell, the chaplain of sacramento. - at the time, i thought it was just a simple and courtesy follow up visit. a call to say hello to a grieving dad and mom. - the main thing that anybody, that anybody can ever do to help another human being is just to listen, be an ear to that person. let whatever is on the person's chest, let them get it off their chest. i can't even remember what we even talked about, but all i know is the feelings i had to kill myself went away. - you talk about what leads up to that darkness, that loss of hope, self-worth, self-worth. we lose that significance of who we are, our identity.

so we look for a new significance to give our life value. - i was mad. i don't know who i was mad at. can i say i was mad at god? no. can i say i was mad at my son for not i letting me know when he was feeling poorly. who, who can i, who can i blame? nobody! - you can get angry. but anger is a secondary emotion, what can be a primary emotion would be loss. what started it? because i experienced such great fear, or i experienced such great loss. or i experienced some great injustice, that's why i'm angry. you see? anger is that secondary emotion. how can you reframe that into something very positive? you see, there's a time for that, just like jess chairez. there was a time that was right for him to grieve, to begin that journey. but then there was a time for him to say,

i'm going to step out of this, take off this cloak, and i'm going to put on a new cloak that gives my life purpose. (gentle music) - i knew in my heart i had so many people to thank. and i went back to the fire department. i went back to the ambulance. i thanked all these doctors for doing everything in their power of saving our son. and to this day, i have still people to thank. it took me about seven months to recover. i tried going back to work, but i couldn't take it. so theresa and i, we took off from sacramento and drove all the way to san diego, and we stopped in as many police departments and sheriff's departments and thanked them for participate in our son's funeral. not knowing if they were there or even if that department was there, it didn't matter. and by thanking them, they would give us the patches.

and so we went from here to san diego, from here to the oregon border, from here to nevada, and from here to san francisco. when i meet people and they're from new york or washington or wherever. i always tell them to go back home and tell your sheriff thank you for me. and then they would mail me one of their patches. so throughout the years, i received a lot of patches. one day, god gave me a dream and he told me that they needed to be displayed. and he showed me a piece of cloth. well, this piece of cloth that i seen in my dream was a quilt. i used to go to different churches for different groups, sewing groups to see if they could make me a quilt. but, you know, god works in in mysterious ways. i ran across my wife's uncle that's been retired for a while. he says he's at a senior citizens place learning how to do upholstery work.

and as we're talking, he says, "well, you know what?" he goes, "there," he goes, "if you want to learn how to make a dress, they'll teach you." soon as he said that, my ears widened up. i says, "man, sign me up." within three days, i was in the class learning how to use a sewing machine, and i thought i was going to make my hands into mittens. i thought it was sew 'em together. it took me a year to learn how to sew, and make my first quilt. my first quilt was sent off to washington, d.c., to the police memorial over there. and that quilt has been all over the united states. (upbeat music) i had to convert my garage into my sewing room. i'm probably about the only male that you know that has a sewing room.

but you know what, though? i'm really proud to say this is my sewing room. not my wife's, this is mine. - [theresa] it's really healing for jess. he was crying sometimes, you know, doing the quilt. and then he said, "this is for our son." i said, "yeah, that is." (slow piano music) - i had a dream that me and him were driving in the car. and it was such a clear conversation and and i was like, "why did this happen to you?" and he was like, "i didn't want to go, but i had to. i had to go." it's been 12 years, but i feel like time froze right there. when he was gone, it was just like, now what? perfect life.

he would have had the perfect life. i don't think his parents gave me credit for my loss, you know? and it's like everybody moved on, but i didn't. everybody still had somebody to go home with and in bed at night. but i didn't. - because she was the fiancé, she was kind of pushed on the side, everything was given to the family. she really got nothing, not recognition, not things. she was just the fiancé. had she been the wife, she would have gotten everything and the parents would have been cast on the side. it's just the way that is. - i don't want the whole world to know that i lost joe. i feel like joe's parents, they're still kind of hanging on, and they don't want anybody to forget that they lost their son. but i feel like we all,

the whole world, lost a great person. not i lost him or they lost him or his friends lost him or we lost a great cop. i feel like the whole world lost a great person. you can't be ready in a month because a doctor said you should be ready or your coworker thinks you're, you're better now because it's been three months. "welcome back to work, you got this, right? you're over it now, right?" you just, you have to expect that because people just don't know. people are that stupid. they don't know that they're really, like, totally saying the wrong thing. after he passed away, his friends would bring me flowers. they were like, "somebody has to bring you flowers." joe brought me flowers all the time. i was real close to all the guys

for a long time. that just was what we all needed. it was hard to hear it from my friends that you're getting a little weird now. take down your hundred pictures, pick your favorite ones, and take the rest down. you know, it's like some of that stuff you just you're not ready to hear, but you need to hear it. so you don't get stuck in those places. so you don't get stuck in, like, making a shrine out of your loved one or living at the cemetery like i did for a while. or you need people to tell you, "hey, keep turning with the rest of the world. come with me. you might learn something new. you might have fun. just try it!" you have to learn when it's good for you to kind of just get back in the world and decide what you want to bring with it.

losing joe, yeah, life is short. life is short. - [rebecca's grandpa] oh, boy. - that's pretty, yeah. - [rebecca] engagement ring! - oh, you, no, really?! - yeah! - about time! (all laughing) - look, pa! how i felt on the inside, wasn't how my friends and my parents and people who love me saw me. i saw myself like that. heartbroken and different, and alone, and damaged goods, and flawed, and cheated. and i felt all these things all the time. - the people that love you the most are the ones that want you to get over it the fastest. they don't understand why months and years have gone by

and and you're still there talking about this loved one. grief shared is grief divided, love shared is love multiplied. when someone dies, you need both. you need to divide your grief with others that are grieving, completely different ways of grieving, completely different relationships, but getting that strength from one another. and then the love that you show one another because they're grieving different than you, just multiplies. (upbeat music) - the red cross, they allow me to go out there and help people. because people came to my aid when i was at my lowest. and that's what i want to do is give back. - when people come through the door,

they're usually mildly interested and they kind of want to learn a little bit more about the red cross. but jess was pretty much ready from the very get go to just dive in headfirst. - i'll stay out there and make sure everybody's fed and everybody's needs are met. if it means that you're working a little longer, that's, i'll do that. i'll do whatever it takes. yeah, i'm coming bill! (soft music) - in southern illinois, the mississippi river was flooding. and so we got deployed there. we found out during that trip that jess was scared to death of snakes. there was a lot of snakes around because everything was flooded. jess was just freaking out from it. he wouldn't get out of the out of the erv at all. he wouldn't come out and look at anything. so i went to walmart and bought some rubber snakes. one day we were going through the trailer park then,

and so i was waiting for, while he was walking back, sloshing through the water there and i got out and reached down and there. "jess, look out, a snake!" and i threw a snake. we never let him forget about it. - i just do what i'm told. when they tell me to jump, i just say, "how high?" - and he wears a hat with joe's badge number 238 and mine was 232. but for some reason people say, what's up with joe 238? and he says, "oh, i'm glad you asked that." and he just goes on and he explains his story to him. every time he tells the story, he still gets emotional. and understandably. you know, you can't help but feel for the guy and people just gravitate to him. - you know, it's been 18 years for you, and it might be too late to try to find out who has your husband's organs. but you know what, though? we're going to try. even if you don't meet them, you can meet other recipients.

and i we talked about a little girl, lacy, that when she was 18 months old, she received a heart, and here she is, 26 years old. meeting people like that is, like you said-- - inspiration! - is the healing to the heart. they're the glue that's holding us together. - nobody understands. - oh, i do. god does. this is what i'm saying. god's using us to help each other. - you know, my family don't even understand how hard it is. - oh, i know that. - because they never went through it. - that's right. i'm so, i'm so happy we got to meet today, of all places, working for the red cross. - i don't know how long jess can keep doing what he does, but he shows no indication of slowing down at all, which i think is pretty admirable. (soft music) - yesterday i met a group of people. they lost everything. but anyway, we were able to talk to them and

comfort them and give them the hugs and, and then they always wanted to know about my son, joe, because they always see me wearing my hat, joe 238. and i tell them stories and i not meaning to, made them cry, but they felt my pain and i felt theirs. and i tell you, that's what it's all about for me. my little cards. i always take them with me because i never know who i'm gonna run across. if somebody wants to know about my son. - growing up, you know, i always had a tenuous relationship with my own father. and to see the love and the devotion that that he had for his son, is, it takes my breath away. and i think we would all be lucky to have a father like him.

(soft music) - we do get our significance for sharing people's legacy. that's good. but are we moving forward or are we stuck in that? that's the only purpose in our life now. - and like my boyfriend that i have now, he's amazing. he's awesome. he's everything to me. but he knows that if joe was here, he wouldn't be. he really wants to get married and i really don't. i don't want kids. now that joe's gone, i don't want any kids. i don't want anybody's kids. i just, my life was supposed to go a different way. (gentle music) he came to me in a dream and i asked him, "what do i do with all your stuff? your car and your things and all these things we have?" and he was like, "it's just stuff." and that to me was like, oh, what a relief.