Memories of Jackson

Little Jackson White’s gumboots are still tidied neatly away in a white crate next to the front door of his parents’ home in Prebbleton.

His name is spelled out on the side of the fridge in colourful magnets, his toys tucked away on shelves, his diggers scattered around the garden.

Jackson is everywhere, but he is not there.

Two months ago, the 4-year-old was involved in an accident at the family’s horse and stock feed business near Christchurch.

His dad, Ian White, was operating a forklift and, somehow, Jackson was killed.

‘‘We were so blessed to have him in our lives for that short period of time,’’ mum Meredith told Stuff.

‘‘He touched the lives of everyone he knew and taught everyone so much. We still talk to him and say goodnight to him all the time.’’

A smiley, happy boy, Jackson talked to anyone, despite a speech delay that left him struggling to form sentences.

Popular at his pre-school, Melodies in Lincoln, Jackson was an outdoors boy at heart. He was also deeply protective of his younger brother, Fletcher.

On September 30, Ian was in the garden with the boys working on a vegetable patch while Meredith slept after a night shift as a nurse at Christchurch Hospital.

After lunch, Fletcher went to bed, and Ian took Jackson to the grain yard so he could deal with a load of barley.

What happened that afternoon is still too raw for Ian to talk about. All he will say is Jackson was hurt by a forklift he was driving.

A call from the ambulance control centre woke Meredith, and she rushed to the yard to find Ian doing chest compressions surrounded by police, ambulance crew and fire trucks.

The minutes passed in a blur but Jackson could not be saved, and he eventually died at the scene. WorkSafe is investigating.

To ease their grief, Ian and Meredith brought their boy home, his little coffin sitting in his room until his funeral.

‘‘We went in and talked to him and practised our speech with him,’’ Ian said.

‘‘There must have been 20 different versions and he got to hear all the different ones.’’

The funeral itself was another blur, but they were not going to let their boy go without being surrounded by the things

Fletcher White recognises his lost big brother in photos. Two months after his death, Jackson White’s memory is still strong in the family home in Prebbleton. that meant so much to him.

‘‘On the coffin we had a flower arrangement, which had some John Deere tractors and toy harvesters spread between them,’’ Meredith said.

Now, two months on, Ian and Meredith are working out ways to swim through the fog of grief.

They talk almost hourly to keep the tough times at bay, and have had the yard where Jackson died blessed. Jackson’s room is also untouched. ‘‘It’s still too early, I just can’t imagine packing it away,’’ Meredith said.

At 19 months old, Fletcher does not fully understand what has happened, but knows his big brother is missing, pointing him out in photos.

While Christmas is looming, it is Jackson’s birthday next August that fills Meredith with dread.

‘‘That’s going to be terribly, terribly hard.’’