Remembering Jack Wilson Saunders

Jack was born on January 3rd, 2002 in Beverly Hills, California, and he was a superstar.

01-03-02. As his dad I joked many times that he was 72 hours too late to be a tax deduction.

Actually, Jack was born a month early: a 7 1/2 pound, 19 inch long preemie. He was the 2nd miracle baby born to Sue Saunders Bradley, who’d been told by 3 different doctors on 3 different continents that she’d never have a baby. She witnessed that stubborn little guy being born. The umbilical cord was wrapped around his neck three times. But he made it.

Me? I was fast asleep in a hospital chair and nearly missed all the drama.

We are better off because Jack made it. And we are better off to have known him.

He was loved by his parents, an amazing big sister, and step parents and grandparents and godparents. He was loved by lots of aunts and uncles – some related and some not – and he had dozens of cousins. 

Although Jack only made it to 23 years, 308 days, he packed a lifetime of adventure and connection and friendship into his short time here. He travelled. He ziplined. He fished. He kayaked in the Panama Canal. He travelled with the VCU Rams to the Final Four and was the youngest kid cheering them on in Houston that weekend. He made lifelong friends on both sides of the Atlantic. He carried two passports, American and British.

He will be remembered as a loving and sometimes mischievous son, annoying little brother, and the tallest of all the cousins. He was a friend to all. If you knew him for 10 minutes or 10 years, you had a friend in Jack. A good friend. A kind, caring, funny, smart, fiercely independent and loyal friend.

From the football field at Alberta Smith Elementary to a basketball court at Bailey Bridge Middle School to Manchester High, where he almost failed his Theatre Class, he made friends: teammates, classmates and teachers. He charmed every parent he met with a firm handshake and good manners…”Yes ma’am.” “No thank you sir.” 

He entered Fork Union Military Academy – incredibly reluctantly – but he instantly made an entirely new group of friends. He ultimately grew to love that place. Covid delayed his graduation in 2020, but he celebrated with his cadet brothers on a sweltering hot July afternoon…in full dress uniforms…sitting 6 feet apart outside on the Parade Field. The minute it was over, it was Covid be damned. Those brothers spent 30 more minutes hugging and high fiving each other. He graduated from – and survived – Fork Union. He made it.

He earned straight As at FUMA, which got him into James Madison University, following his big sister Hattie. Born 4 years apart, Jack and Hattie were not supposed to be there at the same time. But both decided to stay a little longer at JMU — because they both loved it so much. 

Jack thoroughly enjoyed JMU, sticking around for a 5th year. He called it a victory lap. He finished with Dean’s List grades before he walked proudly across that stage in May. He raised his arms above his head to the cheers of many friends. He made it.

And his mom Sue, battling Acute Myeloid Leukemia for more than a year, cheered proudly for her son. Despite all the odds, she made it.

He studied hard and got that big LSAT score. THE University of Richmond…and UR’s prestigious School of Law was the only place he wanted to be. He got in. He got a scholarship. He made it. 

Though his time at Richmond Law was short, I know that he made an indelible mark on his classmates and professors, because we’ve already heard from so, so many of them. I think the entire Law School showed up last night.

Jack set his mind to do something, and he did it. Skateboarding. Snowboarding. Skeet shooting. Guitar. Acting? Yes, the kid who got a D in Theatre Class ended up the superstar in five different TV ads, (with no help from his father who owned the ad agency.)

He started to play the piano the day I bought it. Before he started taking lessons with Tonya Cory, he watched YouTube videos and he taught himself how to play Beethoven — and the intro to Still Dre by Snoop Dogg and Dr. Dre. He conquered everything he tried and it wasn’t really fair. To the rest of us these things would take hard work and practice. To Jack, he just did it. It was easy. He made it.

Jack Wilson Saunders. It wasn’t just a random middle name. He was named after President Woodrow Wilson and Edith Bolling Galt Wilson, the former first lady from Virginia. In hindsight, it was the perfect middle name – mirroring the smarts and confidence of President Wilson and the determination, charm and social graces of the former first lady.

I am inconsolably sad, as I know many of you are. I am sad that the world will not have Jack Saunders, Esquire, as a member of the Virginia State Bar. I am sad for all the friends he would have made in the future and the lives he would’ve changed. Mostly I am sad because I’ve lost my boy…and my best friend.

But I thank God for giving him to me — and to us — and to all of you. 

This is my challenge to you from today onward. Remember the good times. Remember the laughs. Remember that smile. Remember the love and friendship. I pray that you remember him at his best. I also want you to remember the not-so-artistic cover of the Brandermill Church Youth Sunday Program cover from December 2nd, 2007; it was a Nativity Scene drawn at the wondrous age of 5, complete with stick figures and apparently a giraffe, but oddly enough no Wise Men. The title was Jack and Jesus. 

Leave it to Jack to give himself top billing with the Man Upstairs. 

Jack was a Christian, baptized at Maughold Church on the Isle Of Man, confirmed here at Brandermill, and he renewed his faith at Fork Union. The bible on his bedside table was bookmarked on page 852 of the King James Version, Matthew Chapters 14 and 15, the miracles of Jesus.

I know he is now in heaven with both of his grandfathers, Papa and Grumpy.

Lord, it looks like you’re gonna make a new friend. Jesus, meet Jack.

He made it.

We love you all, as Jack did, and we appreciate your kind words, your thoughts, your kindness and especially your prayers. But please, please, please, please no more food. We beg you. Jack’s not here to eat it all.