“I miss her every day,” her heartbroken father told PEOPLE. “Her smile. Her laugh that she had. Waking up and seeing her beautiful face, her beautiful smile.”
“I feel like I’m in a dream, and she’s gonna come home any day now or we’re gonna wake up. It doesn’t seem real. She was a very loving kid.”
Matthew can only describe the sudden loss as a “horrible nightmare.”
Coming home to instinctively set a table for four kids, only to realize he now has three, deepens the wound that has just begun to sink in.
“It’s hard coming home to where all of this happened,” he confesses. “When you’re getting ready to make dinner, you get out four plates for the kids to make their plates and you catch yourself because there’s only three now.”
He only hopes that the soul-wrenching tragedy his family has had to endure will serve as a warning to other parents to take their children’s flu symptoms very seriously.
The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) strongly urges everyone to get the flu vaccine, which can reduce the chance of getting the virus by as much as 60 percent. According to their website, they recommend “a yearly flu shot (after six months old) for kids aged 0 to six.”
While not all flu symptoms require medical attention, they state that people with “emergency warning signs” should visit an emergency room.
Trouble signs to look out for in children include bluish skin, reduced appetite, problems breathing, extreme irritability, fever with rash, fewer wet diapers, not wanting to be held, and no tears when crying.
Al.com says parents should also seek immediate medical attention if “flu-like symptoms improve but then return with fever and worse cough.”
For a full list of ’emergency warning signs’ in both children and adults, visit Al.com.
If you’d like to financially support the Jessie family, A YouCaring page has been set up to cover funeral expenses.
Pastor Pronounces Them “Daddy & Daughter”: 11-Yr-Old’s Wedding Leaves America in Tears
