Without a Word_ How a Boy's Unspoken Love Changed Everything - Jill Kelly [26]
Already on the scene when Hunter was born was Reggie. “Reggamatic,” as we called her because of her Energizer Bunny–meets-old-school work ethic, was one of our nannies. But she was much more than that. Reggie loved Hunter and the girls. She had come to work for us when Erin was a toddler. Jim said that Reggie was like Aunt Bee from The Andy Griffith Show. Her blonde hair was always whipped up into a molded beehive and her make-up was perfect. Whenever she took a break, which wasn’t very often, she would freshen up her lipstick. “You never know when you might get discovered,” she would proclaim with a laugh.
Reggie spent a lot of time with Hunter. She loved reading to him and massaging his body. Hunter loved listening to Reggie talk and sing, and he always fell asleep when she gave him a back rub. When Hunter was three years old he learned how to communicate with his eyes, a huge breakthrough in helping us care for him. Reggie gets most of the credit for this—she taught Hunter how to blink once for yes, something she takes great pride in to this day.
Amy, Hunter’s physical therapist, and Kathy, his occupational therapist, were the first to “invade” our home after Hunter became ill. As harsh as it sounds, that’s exactly how we felt initially. Living with Hunter’s disease was hard enough and exposing our pain and inadequacies to complete strangers made us very uncomfortable. I didn’t want to reveal the enormity of our struggles and fears to anyone other than family; it was just too hard being so vulnerable. With the way Hunter and his daily needs consumed me, I was convinced I didn’t have time to forge new relationships or invest in anyone else’s life. Yet somehow, as new members of our growing team shared part of their lives with Hunter, the capacity of my heart grew to accommodate new friendships. Friendships rooted in a love and camaraderie beyond my wildest expectations.
Team Hunter was family. We all grew to love and care about each other to a depth that surprised every one of us. We depended on each other to maximize Hunter’s care and learned to work together in a way that allowed the Kelly household to look and feel like home again. It was truly amazing, especially because our team consisted of all women—except Hunter and Jim, of course. How we were able to keep the emotional estrogen roller coaster in check (for the most part) is a mystery for sure.
Don’t get me wrong; we all had our moments, or days, and they weren’t pretty. But the respect and love we had for each other in our determination to provide Hunter with the utmost care possible kept us from allowing this world’s burdens and the issues of our individual lives to hinder our team efforts. Hunter needed us to focus, to work together, to love and live and spread joy. Somehow—we did.
In Jim’s Own Words
After we found out that Hunter would need nurses and therapists around the clock, I realized that our household had to adapt. And that adjustment was hard—very hard. I had always tried to maintain some sort of privacy throughout my NFL career. But it was almost impossible. Cars would inch by my house hoping to get a picture. Some people would even come up and peek through the front windows and then drive away. It really got ridiculous at times.
When Jill and I started a family, I became even more protective of our privacy. But that all changed when Hunter got sick. Someone was always at the house. Very seldom did we have dinner with just us because there was always at least one other