Jackson Rees Copeland
Beloved son, brother, grandson, nephew, & friend
Jackson always questioned the status quo. He saw the world differently from the rest of us, and with one observation or insight, he could shatter your worldview. In doing so, he made you a better person.
By Jeff Copeland, Jackson’s Dad
Jackson was born in St Petersburg, Florida on June 26th, 2001. After spending some time in South Wales (UK), California, and Hawaii, we settled back in St Petersburg in 2006.
Jackson attended Perkins Elementary School, Thurgood Marshall and Sanderlin Middle Schools, and graduated from the Finance Academy at Northeast High School in 2019. He joined the US Navy Reserve after high school, while attending St Petersburg College.
Jackson loved history, and I was constantly amazed at the depth and breadth of his knowledge on seemingly any subject. He was a pain in the ass to watch movies with, because he would constantly ask to pause it so he could explain the historical context!
Anyone who knew him well will agree: He was one of the smartest people I have ever known. But his unrivaled intellect was coupled with a seemingly endless patience for those around him, and that’s just one of the many things that made him so special.
Jackson loved his countries: Both of them. He was always very proud of his Welsh heritage (and it is subtly represented in our foundation’s logo). He spent a lot of time in South Wales from a very young age and he loved all of his Welsh family dearly. He once shared with us that one of his favorite places on Earth was his grandparents’ back garden in Tonypandy, South Wales (where some of his ashes now lie). Here in the US, he loved seeing different parts of the country.
Jackson served in the United States Navy Reserve as an Intelligence Specialist, and was very proud of our family’s tradition of military service. I’m saddened that we will never get to see where that path may have taken our talented young Petty Officer Copeland.
A day or two before Jackson decided to stop treatment and come home, one of his doctors was more or less hinting that Jackson should call it quits. Jackson listened from his hospital bed, and his body was devastated, he had lost half of his body weight, he was unable to eat, half his face was paralyzed so he could barely speak, he was deaf in one ear, he had IVs in both arms, a PICC line in his bicep, wires were coming out of him seemingly everywhere, alarms were constantly beeping… The kid was in rough shape, and as it turns out, quite literally near death.
But his sense of humor and fighting spirit still shone through: Jackson sat up and raised his hand to get the doctor’s attention, and in his ragged and slurred speech, told the doctor, “I have not yet begun to fight!”, which is of course a famous quote from legendary US Navy hero John Paul Jones. Much like Jones, Jackson was a Navy man, and a smart ass, right to the very end!
Jackson loved the NFL, Fantasy Football, and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in particular. One of our fondest memories is the boat parade following their last Super Bowl victory in 2021.
We are forever grateful to his favorite NFL player, Mike Evans, who Jackson was fortunate enough to meet a couple of times. Mike was incredibly kind to Jackson; he gave him a glove at the Pro Bowl a few years ago, he texted Jackson a video message for his 21st birthday, and he showered Jackson with gifts of autographed shoes and shirts and hats, and took Jackson in to meet several other players during training camp.
The latter was arranged by the Children’s Dream Fund here in St Petersburg, to whom we are forever grateful.
Jackson was a lover of music, and I know his music was one of the things that helped him persevere through the tough times over his last couple of years. He had a unique taste in music, and as a result Claire and I were exposed to (and are fans of) some of his favorites, like Eden, Raury, Kaleo, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Cage the Elephant, and of course his beloved Arctic Monkeys and Gorillaz!
Jackson loved cars: fast cars, old cars, supercars, classic cars, race cars…you name it. He was very proud of his first vehicle, the ‘green machine’ (a 2002 Ford Mustang), and later his BMW 328 stick shift that he bought and paid off himself. To this day, when I see a cool car on the road or in a parking lot somewhere, my first instinct is to text Jackson a picture of it.
Jackson loved his brother. Deeply. They were inseparable from day one, and shared so many of the same close friends and interests throughout his life. Watching Caden’s relationship with Jackson grow, change, and deepen for 22 years was one of the greatest joys of my life.
Jackson loved his pets. And while he loved them all (Princess, Pepper, Coco, Chance, and a few other reptiles and rodents that didn’t make this list by name), he and his beloved Domino shared that unique bond that can only develop between a young boy and a puppy who grow up together. Domino passed just a few weeks before Jackson was diagnosed, and I’ll always wonder if there was somehow a connection between Domino’s death and Jackson’s terrible disease.
Speaking of this terrible disease, I would be remiss if I didn’t acknowledge Jackson’s bravery, maturity, resilience, indomitable spirit, and sense of humor in the face of what we knew all along could be a death sentence.
Jackson was diagnosed with a particularly aggressive form (FLT-3+) of Acute Myeloid Leukemia in March of 2022, and the treatments were very often worse than the disease. He underwent aggressive chemotherapy in April of 2022, again in May and June of 2022, and again in July of 2022 in preparation for his bone marrow transplant.
The transplant bought him about 5 months of hopefulness, but I’ll never forget the moment I was told “the leukemia is back” on December 29th, 2022. It was as if someone had punched me in the gut and knocked the wind out of me.
Those gut punches never stopped coming, and “the leukemia is back” were words that we kept hearing over and over throughout 2023 and 2024.
To those of you who supported us through those dark times, frequent hospital stays, and long grueling days at Moffitt Cancer Center, we are forever grateful.
Jackson insisted on pursuing every possible treatment option, and he always said “don’t tell me the odds”. His doctors suggested that he stop treatment several times, and of course we made it clear to him that we didn’t want him to suffer and it was okay to stop at any time.
But he was relentless.
He fought longer and harder than many thought humanly possible, and his strength was an inspiration. Jackson’s hematologist at Moffitt was Dr. Rami Komrokji. He is a world-renowned leukemia expert himself, but he shared with us candidly that he had consulted with many of his peers, including several of the top leukemia doctors in the world, and they all agreed that they wouldn’t have attempted half of the treatments he had tried in order to save Jackson. Following Jackson’s death, Dr. Komrokji wrote the following in a note to our family:
“I have encountered few with his courage, kindness, and manners over more than 20 years of treating leukemia. He put up the strongest fight I can think of dealing with this, inspiring all of us and often giving me the courage to continue. He will always be in our prayers and memory, and he inspires us to keep fighting leukemia.”
We are forever grateful to the staff at Moffitt Cancer Center. Despite all the challenges, they gave us two precious extra years with Jackson in our lives.
I couldn’t possibly tell anyone about Jackson without sharing his love for travel. Claire and I like to think that he got his wanderlust from us, and maybe he did. But it was also driven by his keen intellect and curiosity, and we are so happy that we were able to travel with him to so many amazing places during his brief life.
We recently bought one of those push pin maps, where you stick a pin in the places you’ve visited. It was customizable, and we were all trying to decide what to put across the top. Of course, Jackson had the best idea – It was part of a verse by Hans Christian Andersen:
“To move, to breathe, to fly, to float,
To gain all while you give,
To roam the roads of lands remote,
To travel is to live.”
To travel is to live. These were words that Jackson sincerely believed (and are the inspiration for our #JacksonWouldGo campaign). So I believe if Jackson could leave us all with one piece of advice, it would be to travel the world. Go as far as you can, as often as you can, get off the beaten path, and try to see things from a different perspective.
Travel shatters your worldview, and, like Jackson, it changes you for the better.
Jackson passed away peacefully at home, surrounded by his parents, brother, and grandparents, on May 2nd, 2024.
Fair winds and following seas, my precious boy. You may be out of our sight, but never out of our hearts. May you rest in peace.
