Kindness Was on Display at Yard Sale for Pool Victim, 2

When the loss is great enough and it seems the happiness of yesterday is overshadowed by the uncertainty of the future, Christy Kolbet will tell you that there is refuge in the kindness of strangers.

There were the two children who dropped off their favorite toys, the toddler in the red jumpsuit who put a nickel in the donation box and the anonymous young man who stopped by just long enough to add his $5.

These people didn’t know Kolbet or her son, Jonathan Weston, yet that didn’t seem to matter. They came Saturday to Kolbet’s Tustin house, joining hundreds of others at a yard sale to help pay 2-year-old Jonathan’s mounting medical bills.

“People have been so nice, so kind,” said Kolbet, 39. “People we didn’t even know have helped. It’s such a wonderful thing.”

Home in Foothills

Jonathan was 23 months old on March 30 when he and two other toddlers wandered into a back-yard swimming pool at an unlicensed day-care home in Tustin. One child died, while Jonathan and Melissa Dianne Polsfoot, 20 months, both suffered severe brain damage.

The operator of the day-care home, Diane Brooks, and her 24-year-old daughter were charged with failing to obtain a family day-care license, a misdemeanor.

Investigators said the toddlers apparently managed to open a gate in a fence that separated a play area from a star-shaped swimming pool behind the family’s ranch-style home in the Tustin foothills.

Jonathan is hospitalized at Western Neuro Care Center in Tustin, undergoing daily physical therapy while his mother and father, Derek Weston, 28, keep a vigil at his bedside.

“He’s not moving,” Weston said of his son. “All he does is open his eyes. The doctors aren’t giving us much hope that he’ll ever be able to walk or talk again.”

Weston, a carpenter, said life since the accident has been a blur of “working and spending time at the hospital. I get up at 5 in the morning and I get off at 5 in the afternoon. Then I go to the hospital. Every day. We come home and I start all over again.”

Kolbet, who is on leave from her job with Allergan Pharmaceuticals in Irvine, said she spends an average of 10 hours a day at her son’s bedside, hoping for a miracle.

“He moves his eyes and he looks at me,” she said. “I know he recognizes me. At least I think he does. We can’t lose hope. We’re not going to abandon our child. We’re not going to give up on him.”

Therapists are working with Jonathan’s legs, massaging his muscles and trying to teach him to swallow again. The hope, Kolbet said, is that her son will improve enough so that he can come home.

“I’m learning a lot through all this,” she said. “A lot about therapy and how to handle all this.”

The accident has also taken its toll emotionally. Weston and his wife attend regular meetings of POND (Parents of Near Drowners), a support group, and they also undergo professional counseling.

“We sought help because we want to make it,” Kolbet said. “We want to get through this. Our mental health is important in helping Jonathan.”

Neither will speak about what happened at the day-care home and they are reluctant to sound bitter.

“I don’t want to say anything about that right now,” Kolbet said.

The immediate goal is to provide the best care possible for their son and try to deal with medical bills that have already surpassed $200,000. At this rate, Kolbet said, her maximum $1-million catastrophic health-care policy will be eaten up within a year.

“I don’t think anyone has any idea about what catastrophic health care costs,” she said. “You think $1-million coverage is a lot, and it isn’t. After the insurance runs out, what do we do then?”

The yard sale was a start, with friends, neighbors and strangers pitching in to bring items to the house to sell.

“Things just keep coming in,” Kolbet said. “People are really trying to help out.”

Some people came by to buy clothes or books or some of the other items scattered across the front lawn, while others simply dropped coins or bills in a donation box and walked away.

“I just want the best for my son,” Kolbet said, “because we can’t lose hope. We want the best care, the best therapists. He deserves that.”

Family friends said a fund in Jonathan’s name had been established and that donations can be sent to the Jonathan Weston Account, World Savings, 18351 Irvine Blvd., Tustin, Calif. 92680.