KANSAS CITY, Mo. — For 20 years, Reverend Gar Demo of St. Thomas Episcopal church has served the Fleischaker family. Now, after the death of their son, Jack Fleischaker, over the weekend, they are leaning on faith to get them through this time.
Rev. Demo described Jack as someone who was energetic and always knew how to light up a room. He was a leader in his fraternity, Sigma Chi, and accomplished so much as a freshman studying finance.
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“He loved his friends and the people that he was with,” Demo said. “He would always seek out people who were maybe struggling to connect with others, and he would connect with them in ways that he could. His friends have just told great stories about how he would send all of them a snapshot every day of him dancing to some cool song or something like that and just bringing life and vitality to the people around him.”
Jack also showed leadership in his life and in high school as an athlete who played both baseball and football, according to Demo.
“He was a great student and really had a bright future ahead of him,” Demo said.
Demo said that, for Jack’s parents, everything changed when they received the phone call over the weekend
“Everything about their life trajectory changed early Sunday morning at 3:15 when Jack fell out the window. He received a traumatic brain injury, and he was not going to be able to recover from that,” Demo said. “They spent the first couple of days with the medical team, working on everything they could to try to overcome what was going on.”
This isn’t the first time the family has gone through loss. Rev. Demo said they lost their daughter Natalie to Glioblastoma, a brain tumor, 13 years ago. He said at that time they went through the incredible pain of losing a child and now they’re asking the question that those around them are also asking: Why did this happen?
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As he continues to comfort the family, they are holding on to their faith and the new life that Jack can provide by being an organ donor. They stood in faith today at his honor walk.
“Today we did the honor walk for him,” Rev. Demo said. “He had to come to Kansas City from Topeka to go through getting his organs done, and there were probably over 300 people lining the hallways from the ICU all the way down to the ambulance. Both young people, but also the older folks. The families, friends, that kind of visible presence, sadness, grief, shock, all of those things.”
At this time, Rev. Demo says he doesn’t have an answer to why this happened, but he’s helping the family lean on faith, each other and living their life with vitality as they celebrate what Jack was able to give.
