Lauren Berray

When I was getting to know Brooke about eight years ago, I was constantly hearing fun and crazy stories about her family, especially the Shultz clan.  Once we moved to Portland I got to see first hand just how special this family is - Rich & Colleen, Amy, Zak, Heidi and Lauren.  By the time I met them, Lauren was already married to Jayson and in the process of moving to Portland from Sisters. 

So over the last few years we've all hung out on multiple occasions - shared many meals with Rich and Colleen, road-tripped with Zak, toured Panama with Heidi, and have celebrated numerous holidays with Jayson and Lauren and their growing little family.  Upon moving to Portland, both Jayson and Lauren become involved in all kinds of community, church and volunteering opportunities, and Lauren even recently became a lead volunteer for With Love,.

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On Sunday, May 25th, while visiting Jayson's parents in Central Oregon, Lauren had a skateboarding accident and suffered a traumatic head injury.  She was airlifted to the hospital in Bend, underwent immediate surgery, but sadly passed away on Thursday, May 29th.  She was a huge supporter of organ donation, and even after passing away was able to help people in ways many of us can’t imagine. 

Lauren was sweet, kind, funny, and compassionate, and sent me an wildly glittery birthday card every single year.  She had a killer singing voice and was an amazing wife and mother. She is going to be very, very missed.

If you would like to help Jayson and ease the financial burden on him and their two children, please visit the You Caring website (I promise, you will be blown away!  Jayson and Lauren are very, very loved).

Lauren's celebration of life will be held on Saturday, June 21st, from 2-4 pm at:

Westside | A Jesus Church

10500 SW Nimbus Ave, Bldg T

Portland (Tigard), OR 97223

There is no way to even touch the quality and beauty of Jayson's words, so I'm just going to paste them below. 

From Jayson on May 30th:

"As of Thursday morning Lauren’s brain unfortunately was not going in the direction we would have liked. On Tuesday, I made the decision to give her nutrition to see how it might help her body. Unfortunately, we found that Lauren’s injury was just too great for even nutrition to help. Her most recent CT Scan still showed no brain activity, only this time that the brain swelling was increasing. These were not good signs. We sat down with Lauren’s care team and were faced with two choices. The first would be to have the doctors and nurses continue to treat Lauren similar to how they have been since Saturday, only move her to a long term care facility and insert a permanent feeding tube. The second choice — as you might guess — would be to take her off of the equipment and allow her to pass as peacefully as possible.

With a heavy heart, I withdrew into solitude to seek guidance from the Lord. Thankfully, He brought me a peace which surpassed all understanding. I had a revelation which can only be appropriately described in a personal interaction, but suffice it to say that I started thinking about my girl and the type of life she would want me to live. In short, I just couldn't reconcile having half (if not more) of my heart dwelling in some hospital room somewhere for who knows how long when I have two little ones I need to take care of and live life with. They need their Dad and with a long haul of no guaranteed recovery for Lauren, we would not have been able to live that life the way Lauren would want us to.

After my time of solitude was over, I arrived back at the hospital and informed our family that my decision was to take Lauren off of the equipment and allow her to be at ultimate peace and rest.

In the event of her death, Lauren’s wish was to be an organ donor, which I wanted to honor and which meant we would need to say our goodbyes in an operating room. In the event that, once removed from her breathing machine, she passed within two hours it meant she would be able to donate the maximum amount of anatomy possible. I personally escorted her to the operating room and then joined the family in the waiting room while we waited until she was ready. Once that happened, we scrubbed up and made the trek to her. We had the privilege of surrounding Lauren, holding her hands, and kissing her as she drew her last breaths. They removed her breathing tube and within just a few minutes, at 10:37 PM on Thursday May 29, our dear, sweet, beloved Lauren went home to be with Jesus. As we stood there praying that it would not last long and that she would go quickly, I had a vision of a warm beach at sunrise. I saw Lauren wearing a sea foam green skirt and a grey hoodie with a white flower in her ear. She was walking toward Jesus as he stood with His feet in the water waiting for her.

I cannot express how much I am humbled by the support shown to our family in the last five days. It truly has been a miracle. Make no mistake, this is a crappy situation any way you slice it, but that does not mean that God isn't already using it for mighty things.

The Berray and Shultz families love each and every one of you and thank you from the bottom of our hearts. Tomorrow looks pretty uncertain in this moment, but we are so grateful we don’t have to walk through this alone. We have suffered a huge blow, but God remains good and faithful. When evil befalls us the way it has, He chooses to show up, to comfort, and to find a way to make good come from an otherwise destructive situation.

Please pray for rest and whatever normalcy and I can get in the coming days. Love to you all."