JENKS, Okla. -- Through the tears, Jenks youth pastor Drew Wright finds the words to say after his pregnant wife and son suddenly passed away after Christmas.
When you love what you have, you have everything you need.
"She was so special," Wright said. "She loved people so well."
Shannon Wright's smile is captured on a mission trip in Kenya. It was the one thing that made Drew's life more beautiful.
"I would trade anything in the world. I would take the worst life you could imagine if I could have her with me in it," the First Baptist Jenks youth pastor said.
Shannon was a role model to other women and a special needs teacher.
"Her ability to love people that other people struggle to love was really special about her," Wright said.
But life doesn't always turn out the way you plan.
"It's like I'm standing in the ocean with a blindfold on and I know that the waves are going to hit," Wright said.
On Dec. 29, Drew was waiting on a carpenter and Shannon had left him in charge.
"We hugged and said I love you and she went over to her mom and dad," he said.
Soon after, Drew got a phone call that Shannon had passed out. EMT's arrived and began to work.
"I remember walking over and hugging her mom and then just praying in that moment," Wright said.
The 29-year-old was rushed to Saint Francis and doctors performed an emergency C-section and Asa James was sent to the NICU.
"The nurse came out and grabbed me and say we needed to go back downstairs and I knew at that point what I was about to hear," Wright said.
The ER doctor was in tears.
"He said 'there's no easy way to say this, but we did everything we could,'" Wright said.
After a 72 hour scan on Asa's brain, doctors found little to no activity.
"The name Asa means healer," Wright said. "The first time I saw him I knew that we named him perfectly."
In the span of five days, the 28-year-old's wife and son passed away.
"He fought hard but at the end of the day he went to be with his mom, in the perfect place to be a mom," Wright said.
The couple had tried to get pregnant for years.
"I remember her telling me in that moment in our bedroom that regardless of what happens, we're parents and she was right," Wright said. "She got to be a mom, just not the way we wanted it."
Their miracle was expected Feb. 10, but Wright says God's plan changed.
"It wasn't supposed to be that way," he said.
The Jenks First Baptist Church youth pastor isn't mad at God. He knows his wife and sons death has inspired others to believe.
"It's bringing a lot of people back to loving each other and God," Wright said.
Shannon was an angel Wright met in college and is now following him on a walk of tragedy.
"There's no doubt that she's watching over me and our family," Wright said.
Wright says their love is the definition of perfect and he'll cherish the years he had.
Now, faith is everything the youth pastor needs.
"Even though it feels like this is the absolute worst, I know it's not," he said. I know that God has bigger plans for this story and that he is going to do something through my life and my best friends story and my son's story that otherwise couldn't have been accomplished.
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