On Tuesday, while taking in a game at the Nitro Lady Wildcats Summer Hoops Shootout, Wildcats coach Pat Jones stated that he is not an emotional person.
Most who have seen him on a Nitro sideline during a postseason girls basketball game in the past few seasons — me included — would likely disagree.
What Jones probably meant — and I think what most men mean when they say similar things — is that he doesn’t cry. At least, not easily.
He may be tested this Sunday.
When it comes to parenting, there is no finish line, just a series of checkpoints along the way. I know that because I’m 37 years old and on Thursday morning my dad was at my house helping me fix a window air-conditioning unit. Apparently, his job isn’t finished yet either.
Jones will check a box this weekend as he celebrates his first Father’s Day as a dad.
And yet it won’t be the most emotional day he’ll experience in the next few weeks.
That will be the day his infant twin daughters — Everleigh and Emerson — are finally cleared to come home from the hospital, ending a stay in the newborn intensive care unit (NICU) that has lasted since early April.
Jones and his wife, Kinslee, attended what was supposed to be a routine checkup on April 4. It turned out to be anything but that.
“She was literally getting off the table to leave and the nurse said she had forgot to check one of the baby’s cords to make sure everything was OK,” Jones said. “She saw something and brought the doctor in, and he didn’t like what he saw and wanted her to go to the hospital and admit her and run some tests. Come to find out, neither baby was getting the blood supply they were supposed to get.”
A delivery that was supposed to come in mid-July was suddenly induced just hours later, and at 5:24 and 5:25 that evening, the Joneses’ daughters entered the world at just 25 weeks.
Long before Jones was able to hold one of his children, he felt the weight and the fear that comes with being a parent.
“The doctor told me there was a 95 percent chance we were delivering that night or the next day, and I was like, ‘Wait, what? We’re only 25 weeks,’” Jones recalled. “But I’ve learned a lot through this.”
Certainly, Jones has learned to lean on faith and on friends, family and community through turmoil and those first few weeks certainly brought with them plenty of that. One child suffered a pulmonary hemorrhage and a Grade 4 brain bleed, and in the weeks and months that have followed, both have had their hills to climb.
And so have the parents. With Kinslee out of work for nearly two months and expected to be again once the twins come home, bills piled up, both medical and otherwise. Rising gas prices and multiple trips to CAMC Women and Children’s Hospital haven’t helped either.
Since his arrival in Nitro, Jones has made it a point to involve and unite the community behind a girls basketball program that has operated under the moniker “New Nitro.” The attendance of red-and-black-clad fans in the Charleston Coliseum over the past three seasons has spoken volumes to the success of that venture.
And while Jones’ teams have represented the community over the past handful of seasons, this time it was the community’s turn to back its coach.
“The Nitro community has been unbelievable for me and my family, and I’m grateful for everything they’ve done for us,” Jones said. “Not just that, but friends and family have come out of the woodwork with donations and PayPals and Venmos and GoFundMes, and it’s all really helped.”
Jones also credited the staff at Women and Children’s.
“I tell them all the time, ‘I’m so grateful for everything you’ve done but I never want to see you again in three weeks,’” he said with a smile. “I’m over this place. But I can’t show enough appreciation to them. The nurses and the doctors have been fantastic.”
Months of chaos seemed to subside a bit this week after news arrived that the twins should soon be ready to come home. Jones coached his team at the Shootout on Tuesday, Kinslee celebrated a birthday on Thursday, and Father’s Day is set to cap the week.
Kinslee already unveiled her gift — a basketball with the twins’ faces on it and the words “Happy First Father’s Day” inscribed. For a guy that claims not to be emotional, the gift and the moment proved otherwise.
“When I saw it the first time, it really sank in,” Jones said. “One, I’m a father and these last two months as hectic as they have been — I let it out for a few minutes and it’s special.”
And for Jones, maybe the rare tears are only a sign of things to come. For better or for worse.
“Once they told me the other day they’re coming home, it was like a weight was taken off of me, but there’s going to be another weight put on here in about two weeks,” he said. “The sleep is going to kick in and the diaper changes — I don’t like smelling stinky stuff.
“I may cry from the smell.”
