A couple of weeks ago, Kerry Bremer, a mother of three, became a mother of four within a day. She just adopted Jake Manning, a teenager who has Down Syndrome and whose mom had just passed away.
Four years ago, Jean and Jake Manning, mother and son, met Kerry Bremer for the first time. Bremer was Jake’s teacher at his new school. The Manning family had just moved to Massachusetts from Florida so that Jean could receive the medical help she needed to treat her cancer. This meant that Jake would have to follow her, since she was a single mother, and find a new school to educate him and cater for the special needs his situation involves.
That was where they met Bremer. She was Jake’s teacher and she loved the boy immediately. It was a matter of months before Bremer decided to take action.
“I said, ‘I may be overstepping here and forgive me if I am, but my family and I would like to offer guardianship for Jake if you need a backup plan,’” she told Today Parents.
Jean was so relieved when she heard these words. It seems that this was one of her major concerns in case she didn’t make it in the end. From then on, the two families became really close. Jean and Jake practically became part of Bremer’s family. They spent holidays together, Jake used to sleep over at Kerry’s house and Jean even called him “Kerry’s son”, which, as Kerry admits, must have pained the mother a lot.
Bremer was a strong woman with lots of love and affection to give. She did the best for her special boy and even arranged for him to have a beautiful home should she not win this battle with the disease. And, unfortunately, this day came. On Wednesday, November 13th, after escorting her boy to the school bus and waving goodbye went back into the house to sleep and she never woke up again.
After that, everything happened really quickly. Bremer took Jake to her house with her husband and three children- Kristen, 21, Jonathan, 19, and Kaitlyn, 16. The transition seems to be going really smoothly for Jake, since he had already been spending much of his time with the family, he had many of his clothes and favorite toys there. He even calls Dave, Kerry’s husband, “Dave the Dad” and he considers their children to be his siblings.
Manning was a generous person, giving all the love she had to her family and friends. The latter were in no position to care for Jake no matter how much they love him. What some of them did, however, was organize a fundraiser on GoFundMe to help the new family deal with the costs such a step entails.
This might be a sad story but it does come with a silver lining. A kid that would have nowhere to go after his mother’s passing, found a warm, loving home to care for him thanks to these beautiful people. Such heartwarming acts only remind us that there are indeed still good people out there and that not all kindness is lost.
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