The mom of a Massachusetts toddler who died Friday after he was struck by a falling tree is sharing her heartbreak and pleading with other parents to cherish their children.
"That's my one, he was my rainbow baby, he was my miracle baby," Roxx Howe said of her 15-month-old son Jaxx Sellers.
For Howe, Jaxx was all she ever wanted. After Howe and her fiancé Chris spent a decade trying to conceive, their miracle baby was the light of their lives.
"To have him, was a miracle," she said. "He was my pride and joy, he was my everything, I know he was Chris's everything, too."
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Jaxx was front and center in everything they did.
"He was always laughing, he was always smiling, he was always getting into things," Howe said.
Friday night, Chris and Jaxx were out for a walk behind their Townsend home on New Fitchburg Road -- something the father-son duo loved to do together.
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"I was downstairs because it is usually their boys time," Howe said. "And then all of a sudden I hear Chris screaming."
Chris was holding Jaxx when a tree fell in their backyard. Howe says her fiancé tried to do all he could in that split second to shield their son, but while Chris only suffered scratches on his forearm, the toddler's injuries were severe.
"I couldn't tell if he was breathing, I had to do chest compressions, I was doing breaths, I heard the labored breathing stop," Howe said through tears.
Paramedics and firefighters rushed Jaxx to a waiting medical helicopter and he was flown to Tufts Medical Center in Boston. Despite doctors' best efforts, there was little they could do.
"I already knew what happened, I already knew I lost my son," cried Howe.
The days since have been a painful blur for her. She says the easiest part was deciding to donate her son's organs -- a little bit of good, she says, during an absolutely awful time.
Howe says doctors were able to match Jaxx's kidneys with someone. She hopes to meet that person in the coming months. Knowing even after all she has been through, her son in a large way lives on.
"I want people who still have their kids to hold them a little tighter and cherish them a little more because I don't get to do that anymore," she cried.
At the time of the incident, around 7:45 p.m. Friday, the National Weather Service had issued a wind advisory, with wind gusts up to 50 mph, in the Townsend area. Officials have described the boy's death as a freak accident.
