Babyface Reid

From the fundraiser show! We raised well over $5K for circus education!

📷:

This was our last great picture together the end of August 2024. In less than a year your health would rapidly decline and your quality of life along with it. If you knew her, you knew that she loved all of her kids unconditionally. It never mattered that my sister and I weren't blood. We grew closest after Dad died the end of October 2021 and I will cherish our weekly sometimes hours long phone calls in which we comforted each other through tears many times.

Diana fought through many lifelong illnesses and many physical struggles that no normal person would be able to combat let alone survive for as long as she did. It was a life of extreme physical pain on an everyday basis and she never let it break her spirit. She always found a way to smile, laugh, be kind, or just take you in for a great big hug no matter how the day went. It is because of her will to keep going regardless of the pain that I find the strength to always keep going and get back up.

In my world of strong people she was the strongest lady I have ever known. My brother, my nephew, and I are all better men because of how you showed up for us in all walks of life. Your passing will deepen our purpose in living a good life both to honor you and because that's what you as our parents wanted for us. May you know peace from a world that never broke you.

Diana Wilson 12/30/1957 - 3/6/2026

Jacob D. Stott.
I understand as much as I'm ever going to. I think about how difficult the past year, life has been to this point. I wish we would have had the opportunity to both grow as adults. To get the chance to just talk and to know you now. You were only ever kind to me.

Today, 2/14/2026 marks 20 years that you succeeded in finding a permanent solution for temporary problems in which you knew no escape. I remember how I felt that day because a lot of those very same feelings live in me today. I remember that I wanted to be just like you when I grew up and in some ways I was. I remember how empty... lost... afraid, I felt years after you died when I was the same age and I think that for a time it made sense to me because you didn't see any other option.

In many ways I persevered when I didn't think I had any other option because of you. I wasn't living my life just for me, I was living it for the both of us and it seemed too easy not to endure to see what came next. The music you shared with me stays with me forever on my skin as daily affirmations as if I could ever forget. I was never mad at you, I haven't blamed myself for a few years now, knowing that there's nothing I could have done to change your mind...but I still miss you. I miss you a lot and I hope that you'd be proud of me.

I'm going to continue to rip through my goals until I can regularly help those who need it most. The kids that feel hopeless just like you did. I don't know that I'll ever save anyone. I'll at least give them the chance to not be afraid like we were. The chance to see that our only limitation truly is time and everything else is a matter of how far you're willing to go. I'd like to believe that you'd be able to understand that one person does change the world because 20 years ago today the world changed for me. May you know peace for the pain you carried. Until we meet again, brother.

Is the moment of peace worth everything it took that came before that moment? Can you keep going when you really don't want to? Will any of it matter? Years make memories fade and it's easy to forget who showed up when nobody else did. Will you?