Couple Finds Hope After Loss of Two Sons
March 13, 2024
By Christi Mays
This is not a story about sadness. It is a story of hope. It is a story of parents who loved their two boys with every fiber of their being for the short years their sons were with them. It is a story of how the lives of two boys have continued to impact lives decades later. It is a story of two parents who chose hope over sorrow. This is the story of Jay and Justin Schultz.
A picture of Jay and Justin sat on Frank Schultz’s desk at work until the day he retired in 2015. Passersby constantly commented on their handsome looks and asked Frank about them. What they learned was heart-crushing and unfathomable. Frank and Diane’s sons, Jay and Justin, passed away within two years of each other from what doctors suspected were electrical malfunctions in their hearts. Even through unbearable heartache, the couple held onto a transcendent hope that only God could provide for two grieving parents.
A FAMILY DEVASTATED
Absolute
devastation hit the Arlington family in 1999 when younger brother Justin passed
away after an unexplained heart malfunction at the age of 13 while they were on
a spring break ski trip with their church family. Losing a child is the most
heart-wrenching and incomprehensible loss a parent could ever experience. But
just two years later, the couple got a phone call no parent ever wants to get
and found themselves living the nightmare again—their older son, Jay, had
suffered a similar heart attack, and rescuers could not revive him. It happened
on the Saturday before Mother’s Day and just days before Justin’s birthday.
Jay, a sophomore majoring in communications, had just completed his second year
at UMHB and was packing up his room in McLane Hall to go home for the summer.
No words can
adequately describe Frank and Diane’s utter grief that day. They were still
mourning the loss of Justin, and now both of their sons were gone.
COMING TO UMHB
While in high school, Jay worked hard every summer as a camp staffer with the Challenger Program. He was hoping to qualify for a program scholarship that would help pay for college. Even though Jay was still grieving the loss of his little brother just months earlier, he decided to work the six camps that summer, sharing his testimony with campers. After learning that he and his best friend, Zach Tomlinson, both received the scholarship, they ended up choosing to go to UMHB.
“We didn’t know how Jay was going to handle going to school since Justin had just passed,” Frank said. “We still had a lot of anxiety about the whole situation.”
With bittersweet hugs and tears, the couple dropped Jay off at Welcome Week and anxiously returned the following week to check on him.
“It was amazing to me because when we saw him, he was really on fire,” his mom recalled. “We went walking across the campus, and everybody was saying, ‘Hi Jay! Hi Jay!’ It was like he had already found his group.”
“In just one week, he had really bonded with his family group,” Frank added.
Jay initially decided not to tell others at college about his brother’s passing. But on the last night of his family group gathering (back then called “Crier Night”), as Jay and his buddies sat in a circle, they began sharing meaningful moments in their lives.
Jay became uncharacteristically quiet and finally confessed that his baby brother had passed away in March. With a personality that was “bigger than life,” his friends had never seen the somber side of Jay and started laughing, thinking he was joking around. They soon realized they were wrong as tears rolled down Jay’s cheeks. The moment further bonded the group of guys, and when he told his parents what happened, it helped ease their apprehension.
“UMHB was just what he needed,” Diane said. “I didn’t worry then because I knew they would take care of any issues. All of his friends were so supportive.”
“It was a wonderful experience for him, and he had what he desperately needed,” his dad added.
In the two years after his brother passed away, Jay bravely shared his story with many other young people, stressing that life is precious and no one is invincible.
“Wherever he went, he always used (his testimony) for that reason,” his mom said. “He would say, ‘This is what can happen, and don’t believe you have forever.’ He absolutely used his brother’s death for good.”
UNEXPECTED HELP
After the news of Jay’s passing, Frank and Diane describe the next few days as surreal. They needed clothes for Jay’s funeral, but everything he owned was still in his dorm room.
“Jay hadn’t even started packing, and his room was totally upside-down,” Diane recalled.
The thought of packing up his life was understandably heartbreaking, but thankfully, McLane Hall’s Resident Director, Wendi Fitzwater, offered comforting support for the grieving parents.
“Take what you need, and I’ll take care of the rest,” Wendi assured them. And she did.
“We’d already had such a great relationship with the school when he enrolled; it was all very positive. But this is really when things began to go to the next level,” Frank said.
When the couple returned a few weeks later, Wendi and her team had neatly packed up all of Jay’s belongings and even laundered his dirty clothes. The unexpected gesture was uplifting, the Schultzes said. They were also surprised to learn that UMHB had already taken care of the emergency ambulance service bill. One of the most touching gestures, however, was when they learned about UMHB opening one of the residence halls for students to have a place to stay the week before Jay’s funeral. The university bussed the students to and from Arlington so they could pay their respects and say goodbye to their friend and classmate.
“Everything that UMHB did blew us away,” Frank and Diane said.
A NEW LIFESAVING DEVICE FOR CAMPUS
When Frank’s employer, Mobil, merged with Exxon, he learned Exxon provided a three-to-one match for philanthropic donations, which sparked an idea. Portable automated external defibrillators (AEDs) were becoming more commonplace but cost thousands of dollars more than they do today. With the help of the matching Exxon grant, Frank and Diane were able to purchase UMHB’s first AED. Having an AED available at a moment’s notice in the campus squad car gave Frank and Diane hope that someone suffering a heart attack might have a better chance of surviving. Today, there are almost 30 AEDs located throughout campus and in squad cars.
“We felt good about that,” Frank said, and the couple sensed God leading them to continue giving to UMHB in a more lasting and memorable way to honor Jay and Justin.
It became evident to them that a $50,000 presidential endowed scholarship was possible with the matching grant through Exxon.
Over the next few years, the couple, along with family and friends pitching in on holidays and the boys’ birthdays, contributed to the scholarship, which was endowed in 2009. A plaque with the boys’ pictures was added to the administration building to recognize the gift. Bobby Johnson, a fundraiser at the time, and Dr. Jerry Bawcom, who was president, drove to the Schultz’s house in Arlington to say “thank you” and present them with a replica plaque. Over the years, the couple continued contributing to various projects close to their hearts. In memory of their sons, they donated the mock nurse’s station inside the Isabelle Rutherford Meyer Nursing Education Center and a row of chairs inside the Sue & Frank Mayborn Performing Arts Center. Now that Frank is retired, they’re still contributing in a smaller capacity and recently signed on to give money to the Marek-Smith Center for Teacher Preparation, which will open later this year.
Even though it’s bittersweet, they can look back and see the Lord’s hand in their decision to give to UMHB.
“I wanted my son to be somewhere that was Lord-led, and UMHB truly is,” Diane said. “And that’s the reason we still give our support.”
“It’s our way of making something good out of something terrible,” said Frank. “UMHB is near and dear to our hearts.”
NEVER FORGOTTEN
The Schultzes like to imagine that it’s not perchance that almost every student in Jay’s church youth group went into ministry.
Zach Tomlinson ‘03, Jay’s best friend, is now a youth pastor in Pittsburg, Texas. With tears of joy and sadness, the couple cheered for Zach in 2003 as he walked across the same stage Jay would have walked across if he had graduated. After the ceremony, Zach told Frank and Diane, “Jay walked across the stage with me,” and showed them a second tassel adorning his graduation cap.
Diane says another of Jay’s good friends from his family group, Mike Koger ‘03, still calls the couple out of the blue to check in on them, which means so much. One of Mike’s daughters shares her middle name with Jay. And every May, for the last 22 years, Frank and Diane receive a card in the mail from Jay’s resident director, Wendi Fitzwater, who helped them during their hardest time.
“To me, that is beyond compassionate,” Diane said. “Because you’re only gone when you’re forgotten, and she doesn’t forget. For someone who lost both children, that really means a lot to us. There are not that many people who remember our boy, but she remembers, and that means the world to me.”
HOLDING ONTO HOPE
Frank and Diane are quick to acknowledge the many other people who are struggling with sadness in their lives but want them to know there is hope. They stressed that the way they made it through the worst part of their grief was by taking one day at a time, focusing on where the Lord was leading.
“Early on, the way we survived was we let other people know that there is hope,” Diane said. “I absolutely know where my boys are, and I know I’m going to see them again, and I look forward to that day.”
“You just have to have hope,” Frank agreed. “That’s the biggest thing.”
“It’s not the end of the story,” Diane said.
“It’s not the end of the story,” Frank agreed.
