Journal News Article: JimmyBoy slips into Coma

[WAS967 97]

Here is the article from the Journal News for all who may have missed it. Found it on a google search for Jimmy Boy's website.

http://www.thejournalnews.com/apps/pbcs.dl.../1017/HEADLINES

Family prepares for death as Somers boy slips into coma

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(Original publication: September 16, 2005)

SOMERS — It's almost as if death sent a messenger to the Arenas, with a promise to take their only son, Jimmy, before he learned to ride a bike.

And the Arenas fought like hell for the next 20 months to change death's mind.

As the tumor in Jimmy's brain finally lulled him into a coma, what has dawned on this family with seven children and the world around them is not so much that death never changes its mind — even for a boy as sweet as this.

It is that death changes everyone else's mind — powerfully, painfully, irreversibly — about what is important. About love and life, sacrifice and suffering.

"Death is beautiful," said Jimmy's mother, Gina Arena, her hazel eyes clear with conviction.

On Wednesday, she alerted everyone on her e-mail list that her "Jimboy," the son of a firefighter, the source of her joy, is on his deathbed, sleeping. Peacefully. Painlessly. At the age of 6.

"We are all sent here to do a job. Some do it quicker and some take longer," Gina Arena said. "He's done more in six years than—"

"—Than people who have been here for 90 years," said his father, James Arena.

It may seem like a remarkable mood for a working-class couple who can do nothing but wait for their blond-haired boy to die.

But remarkable as it may be, it is no accident. It took every tick of twenty months for the Arenas to make peace with death.

From the moment a 3-inch tumor was found in Jimmy's brain, through the months of aggressive treatment on the West Coast that meant spending Christmas in California, the Arenas have agonized to overcome hopelessness.

"Everyone says we should write a book," said the father as he waved goodbye to a teacher and a middle school principal who had just visited Jimmy's deathbed.

Inside the Arenas' ranch house in Lake Purdys, Gina Arena greeted visitors with a smile and a full-body hug. Her mother was in a corner of the living room, holding Jimmy's hand.

His eyes and mouth were closed. His breathing was soft and even. The skin of his face and shoulders was unblemished, and a certain gentleness seemed to blanket his little body. Kin and strangers, who come unannounced to give comfort, hope and prayers, find a deathbed scene most did not expect to see.

"People have learned so much from him," Gina Arena said. The religious medals she has collected around her neck are so numerous that they look like dog tags. Dog tags of a warrior mother. "It is overwhelming in a good way."

It is because Gina Arena has sent hundreds of e-mail updates to friends and friends of friends that many hundreds — if not thousands — of people across the northern suburbs have seen close-up something people work hard to avoid — the sight of death advancing on the innocent. The sight of inconsolable sorrow.

Gina Arena's e-mails have told of her begging and moaning, her days of screams, her nights with breaths too heavy to breathe. All to find a moment of meaning.

Her e-mails often ended with admonitions for parents to hug their children each day, to tell their kids they loved them. It was advice that hardly any other mother could give in an unsolicited e-mail without sounding sanctimonious.

Clearly, friends say, she has paid the price to give advice.

"Everyone talks about the importance of family but she has been living through a battle that no one can win," said friend and Elmsford volunteer firefighter Tom Bock, a systems analyst for The Journal News who has organized blood drives for the Arenas. "Everyone is moved by the sight of this dying child."

At the same time, the Arenas have been models of preparation for something many people would believe is impossible to prepare for. In doing so, the Arenas are witnesses who say there is such a thing as a good death.

"People don't expect him to look like this," Gina Arena said. "He is so peaceful. There is so much love. Death is a beautiful thing. Even though it is painful for those of us that are here, it's going home."

Home for the mother is everlasting life with God, a realm that James Arena said his wife is better at visualizing.

"I am getting better at it. But Gina definitely has a connection," said the father, a volunteer with the Katonah Fire Department. "When my grandparents passed away, I felt destroyed, but I don't feel that with Jimmy. I hold him. I feel comfortable."

The feeling of comfort began one month ago, when an emergency MRI showed that Jimmy's tumor was out of control. This was after three open-brain surgeries, chemotherapy, radiation, and oral drugs for a second brain tumor.

"He has been a strong, strong fighter but at some point, you have to let him go," Gina Arena said. "Although there is a piece of you that never accepts that, there is an acceptance of God's will."