Tomisa Bates’s son, Jaxson, was born somewhere on the autism spectrum, and birth defects led to multiple long hospitalizations.
As he grew older, Jaxson was nonverbal and could barely communicate. Until he met Deacon.
When Jaxson was 3 years old, after all the other resources Bates tried didn’t seem to help, she got creative.
“It just seemed like everything was an uphill battle,” she said.
One of Jaxson’s ears is smaller than the other and folded. She found a dog on offer through Craigslist. When she saw it too had a bent ear, she knew he was the one.
Bates brought the dog home, and the two became inseparable, almost like brothers, she said. Jaxson, whom doctors were unsure would ever be able to communicate at all, was making eye contact, talking and starting to read. “Deacon” was his first word.
“I 100 percent believe my son wouldn’t be where he is today without Deacon,” she said. “He went and found my son and he brought him back.”
Bates is one of the administrators for the popular SW Washington Emergency Services Alerts Facebook group, which has more than 21,000 members. When Deacon died in late November, other page moderators rallied to help her out.
Randall Crane, a friend and one of the nine page administrators, organized an online fundraising campaign to help with cremation costs and, he said, try to help Bates’ family end the year on a better note.
“She has had one hell of a year,” Crane said.
Losing Deacon hit Jaxson, now 12, profoundly, and this year Bates also went through a divorce, had to deal with some health issues and works two jobs on top of that, he said. And then there’s the hours of volunteering she does with the Vancouver Police Department’s Neighbors on Watch program.
“She’s always been a big help in the community,” Crane said. “She’s always been one that’s willing to go above and beyond to help anybody in the group.”
The GoFundMe campaign has raised more than $1,000 so far toward a $2,500 goal. Bates said she wasn’t sure how she will spend the money.
Therapy dogs, which Deacon was not, are expensive. She’s unsure they’re ready for a new dog, specially trained or not, at the moment.
When she first learned about the campaign, she was light-headed with surprise and gratitude.
“Knowing what it feels like to be on the other side of that compassion kind of re-energized me, I guess,” she said. “It was important to see what that was like and to know what our group does for people and to, you know, just keep going.”
When she let people know, through Facebook, she received upward of one hundred good wishes through the group, and she said she and her son read every one, she said, more than once.
“The smallest thing you do in our community can have the biggest impact. You might not make everything better for everyone, but you can always make something better for someone,” she said. “That’s what I try to teach my son and the example I try to set and I was extremely humbled to see the love we have sent out coming back to us threefold.”
The campaign is online at GoFundMe.com under “Support Tomisa and her son’s loss,” or www.gofundme.com/support-tomisa-and-her-sons-loss.
