OXFORD, Mich. – The mother of Justin Shilling, who was killed during the Oxford High School shooting, spoke about her son’s life, his death, and the decision to donate his organs.
“His name was going to be Evan,” Jill Soave said. “When he was born, I looked at him and said, out of nowhere, ‘This is a Justin. We’re naming him Justin.’
“He was just like a little doll. Just something about his cute little face and his nose.”
She said when she was pregnant with one of Justin’s brothers, Justin came out with a bucket and rag to wash the cabinets.
“He was always attached to me and just so sweet -- the sweetest, most thoughtful kid,” Soave said. “Always hard-working, always high-achieving, never complained, working multiple jobs. He would have graduated as one of the highest-achieving students in the whole school. Top honors.”
Soave said she remembered the first time she saw her child as she prepared to look at him for the last time.
“They had a screen with an x-ray of Justin’s spine and the brain and where the bullet went through,” Soave said. “Spinal cortex -- it severed his spinal cortex.”
Soave remembers a conversation she had with one of the lead doctors while her son was in the hospital.
“I took him aside, and I just said, ‘Doc, be straight up with me,’” Soave said. “At one point, it was expressed, ‘non-life sustaining injuries,’ and I remember just falling into the corner. I just kept saying, ‘Take me.’”
Pictures of Justin remain all over his mother’s home. She said there can never be too many pictures and memories with her son.
“It’s still day-by-day,” Soave said. “It’s truly just by the grace of God. We’re here, we wake up every day and we do our best. But it doesn’t get better, it just gets different. Grief isn’t stagnant, so it comes in cycles.”
Soave said her road to courage wandered through the path of rage.
“All the people involved who could have prevented this,” Soave said. “Everybody. Every single person, because it was so preventable. We lost these four kids for no reason. It was preventable, so I think that’s what’s most heartbreaking is that it just didn’t have to happen.
“I have that rage that comes out, absolutely. You have to allow it out. That’s a big part of grief, is anger, and I just don’t suppress it. I have to yell and shout.”
Justin’s last gift: His organs were donated to others. Soave said the process was handled carefully and respectfully.
Justin had set the wheels in motion months before the school shooting.
“He did have a talk with his dad that he was adamant he wanted to become a donor,” Soave said.
She said there are many misconceptions about organ donation like medical officials won’t try to save donors if they’re badly injured.
“There’s so many tests that they do showing you that your loved one is brain-dead, so it’s made quite clear, and it’s done very gently, and everything is explained to you,” Soave said. “As his mom, I knew the moment I walked in the room that that was his body, not his soul.”
While the shooting prevented Justin from living a full life, his decision to become an organ donor felt like a gift to Soave.
“It actually felt like a gift for us,” Soave said. “It was a gift for us because knowing that a part of him -- I wasn’t even thinking about the lives that he would save initially. I was thinking, ‘Oh my goodness, a part of my baby is going to be here on this plane. We’re going to hold on. We get to hold onto a part of him.’ It was only later that I could realize the impact of him saving six lives and the joy and the pride that would come from that.”
There’s a ritual called the “hero walk,” when the tissues and the antigen matches are made. It was time to say goodbye to Justin’s body, and he was wheeled to the operating room.
Hundreds, if not thousands, of people, went to honor him while the family, doctors, and nurses formed a procession to the operating room.
Soave said she looked outside the window and briefly found the strength to breathe.
“Through that walk, I kind of turned, and the crowd could see me, and I gave kind of like a fist bump, like, ‘Thank you,’ and that’s when I realized, ‘Oh, he’s saving people’s lives,’” Soave said. “This isn’t just for me to have extra time. He’s saving people’s lives, and I think that’s when it shifted, the magnitude of his gifts.”
Through the gifts from Justin -- two heart valves, his liver, a lung, and two kidneys -- six lives have been saved.
“It was a blessing to have something sacred, something honorable, helping others, and that was Justin, how he lived,” Soave said.
You can watch the interview in the video above.