U.S Rep. Jonathan Jackson shares last moments with father Rev. Jesse Jackson before death at 84
U.S. Rep. Jonathan Jackson shared his last moments with father Rev. Jesse Jackson before his death at age 84.
Jackson said his father was surrounded by family, including his brother Jesse Jackson Jr. and his mother, Jacqueline Jackson, who had been married to Rev. Jackson for 64 years.
He said the family had been gathered at his parents' home when his father died around 1 a.m.
"Just holding his hand, loving on him, talking to him, giving all of our expressions, being with my mom," he said. "My family was around his bedside. It was very intimate and personal, and family friends coming by, and an overwhelming amount of ministers who prayed for us, prayed with us."
Jackson had been hospitalized in November for progressive supranuclear palsy, which Rep. Jackson described as a "very rare form of Parkinson's."
He said his last conversation with his father was around the time of that hospitalization, "around four or five months ago when he could still speak.
"The doctors said he didn't have much time, had given him months to live years ago, so he exceeded that in every measure," he said.
He also reflected on his father's role in his own life not as a leader, but as his dad.
"Some people see a political figure, and I just know him as a person that never gave up on me," Rep. Jackson said. "I would tell people, just as a son speaking of a father, never give up on your children."
He said his father believed in personal salvation as well as social salvation and was excited by the new generation of leadership he saw rising at the end of his life.
"Leadership isn't something that's passed on," Jackson said. "It's a mantle that people pick up and assume. No one inherits leadership, there's no one anointed the leader. And there are great people who are being fashioned by the times and now they're beginning to emerge, and so in this 100 years of African American History month – that was crafted in the city of Chicago and at the University of Chicago by Dr. Carter G. Woodson – it's fitting that he goes on to the ancestors."
Jackson noted his father was only 27 years old when his own hero and mentor, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., was assassinated, and it affected everything about how he lived his life from that point on.
"He lived each day like it was his last. He had a very short focus because he never saw himself living long, and God gave him a long and healthy life. And so God has been very kind and very great to our family," he said.
