PLATTSBURGH — Pure hell was how Thom Hallock described the week that he and his wife, Jackie, learned their son would not live more than a few days after being born.
“The world came crashing down around us within those five days,” Thom said. “If we could carry to term, we would be lucky.”
The Hallocks shared the story of the brief but heartfelt life of their son, Tristan, while speaking as presenters at the 2025 Evening of Healing event held at the Newman Center in Plattsburgh Monday.
The annual event welcomes members of the North Country community who have suffered great pain, loss or tragedy in their lives to share their stories on stage, discuss how they’ve dealt with them and what has come as a result.
The ninth-annual installment of the event brought three sets of speakers to the stage to share their stories:
• Michele Armani-Munn, who shared handling the suicide of her mother
• Iasia Mosley, 15, who shared her struggles and experiences in the foster care system
• Thom and Jackie Hallock, who lost their infant son to fatal birth defects
TRYING FOR A CHILD
Jackie Hallock shared that she had attended a number of the Evening of Healing events in the past but hadn’t thought then that she would have ever been on stage sharing her own story.
“And it was because I had heard so many stories (while) coming to these things, that I knew we could get through it,” she said. “And so hopefully our story can help. If there’s one person out there who has suffered something similar, if our story helps you in some way, then this has been a job well done.”
The Hallocks had spent a decade trying to conceive.
“We tried and tried and tried and nothing happened,” Jackie said, recounting years of medications, surgeries, IUIs, and IVF attempts.
So it felt like a miracle to the couple when Jackie told Thom one evening in the summer of 2022 that she was pregnant.
“We were worried, though, because of everything Jackie had been through, so we went through the most extensive testing possible to make sure everything was okay,” Thom said.
LOVING TRISTAN
Everything seemed fine with the pregnancy up until the 20th week, when doctors told the couple of their son’s condition.
“Not only did our son have spina bifida, but he had an extreme heart condition and other deformities,” Thom said. “He would not live more than a few days if he survived birth at all.”
Put together, the symptoms pointed to a condition known as Trisomy 13, an extra chromosome on the 13th chromosome.
The Hallocks said they knew that they didn’t want to terminate the pregnancy and were determined to meet their son, Tristan.
The pair praised the efforts and support of the Pediatric Palliative Care Unit at the University of Vermont Medical Center in accommodating all of their plans and desires for Tristan.
“The palliative care team put us in a special suite so we could bring the grandparents, the godparents, and for the next three days, we gave him nothing but absolute love,” Thom said.
“He had such a short life that we were going to simply experience him and love him, and that’s what we did,” Jackie said. “We were up for 24 straight hours and singing him songs, reading him books and giving him nothing but absolute love.”
THE TRISTAN FUND
It was that joy of reading through Tristan’s brief life that inspired the couple to raise funds for Mountain Lake PBS’s Giving Library program that buys books to give out to kids for free at PBS events.
But the fundraiser far exceeded expectations and as tens of thousands of dollars rolled in, the decision was made to use the money to form The Tristan Fund that would continue to fund that book program well into the future.
In closing, the Hallocks urged attendees not to shy away from speaking with people who have been through hardships like theirs to give them the chance to share their story and help keep the memory of their loved one alive.
“If you ever asked me that, the answer would be yes, and I’d blather on and show you pictures,” Jackie said.
THE MOMS SHE KNEW
Finding connection through loss was also a central theme to Michelle Armani-Munn’s story of the evening.
“My mom was 52 when she died by suicide,” Armani-Munn said. “I have a mom I knew before she died, and a mom I met after she died.”
Growing up, Armani-Munn remembers her mother as an athletic, artistic and vibrant person.
“She was just a person who was beloved by everyone,” Armani-Munn said.
But Armani-Munn also remembers always sensing something else, an unease just beneath the surface of her life.
“I couldn’t name it, but I knew something was not exactly the way I thought it should be,” she said.
That undercurrent came to the surface in 1995 when Armani-Munn noticed her mother hadn’t called to wish her son a happy birthday.
Armani-Munn’s father and her mother’s friends hadn’t heard from her either.
The police were called and her mother’s body was found in the forest near her home.
It was Good Friday that day.
But it was on Easter that Michelle’s aunt took her aside.
“I was asked the question on Easter by my aunt: “Michelle, do you know all of your mother’s secrets? and I said, ‘Not if you’re asking me this question.’”
WE HELP EACH OTHER
It was on that day that Armani-Munn learned that her mother had been married before and had another family with children before her own.
She was introduced to her half-siblings including her sister who held a deep resemblance to their mother.
“I turned around and for a moment like this. I don’t know if anyone’s had this moment, but I felt that I was in heaven, that somehow my mother came back to me in that moment,” Armani-Munn said.
It was from there that Armani-Munn learned about the other side of her mother: the one who was pregnant at 18 in the late 1950s, who had married and started a young family — only to leave them for reasons Armani-Munn never learned.
“The world was really a different place then, you know. and this beautiful, athletic, artistic woman didn’t necessarily have the same opportunities that we would have today,” Armani-Munn explained.
So in knowing the pain and uncertainty that she and her mother and so many others in her life have gone through, Armani-Munn has worked to spread comfort and understanding in her role as a first grader teacher and through her work with youth support and career readiness group “Ready4Real.”
“I had deep sadness that almost broke me as an adult,” Armani-Munn said. “And so I think working with students to be able to be honest and truthful about your stories is one of the most powerful lessons that we can share.”
A girl she was helping mentor asked her once why she cared so much.
In response, Armani-Munn explained: “By the time I was married, my dad was in prison and I had lost my mother. I found out my entire life was a lie. But it’s what we do: We help each other, and we grow.”
TOUGH CIRCUMSTANCES
It was that force of unconditional love that 15-year-old Iasia Mosley said reached her in the dark days of her life as well.
Born into a large family with six siblings scattered across various households, Iasia was the only one still living with her biological mother—a woman caught in cycles of addiction and abuse.
Her stepfathers were violent, her father was an alcoholic and largely absent.
“I had a six-month stay with my grandmother when I was in the first grade,” Mosley said. “A result of me telling my first grade teacher I was afraid my stepfather was going to kill my mom.”
The isolation of the COVID-19 pandemic, attending fourth grade from home in 2020, only worsened Mosley’s state of mind
Diagnosed with depression in fifth grade, she began self-harming, and by sixth grade, had been hospitalized three times, the last due to a serious suicide attempt. That attempt was a turning point: a moment of collapse that opened the door to foster care, initially just for respite.
But as her mother went to rehab and relapsed again, it became clear Mosley needed more than temporary relief—she needed a new foundation.
Her biological mother would assure Mosley that she was getting better.
But her foster parents would have to tell her the hard truth: she wasn’t.
NOTES OF LOVE
This angered and frustrated Mosley, she said, explaining how those feelings led her to act out and push against her foster parents’ affection.
“I tested how much my foster parents could take from me before giving me away,” Mosley said. “I expected them to leave me just like the other people who were supposed to love and care about me.”
But they didn’t.
“Note to self: Do not put a sign on your bedroom door for your foster parents that reads: ‘Do not come in, I do not like you.’ They will respond with annoying notes all over the house that say: ‘We love you, Iasia,’” ” Mosley said wryly, to laughs from the audience.
Mosley’s foster mother, Richelle Gregory, joined Iasia on stage to share her own story and spoke of the challenges and rewards of that experience.
Gregory noted how a teenager telling her parents that she doesn’t like them wasn’t exactly too far off from the traditional teenager parent experience, but she and her husband still had to work to manage Mosley’s life circumstances.
“So we have to really respect Iasia’s boundaries. That’s very important to create that atmosphere of safety,” Gregory said.
In 2024, Mosley asked her biological mother and father to voluntarily give up their parental rights so she could be adopted.
But Gregory explained how they still worked to let Iasia have contact with her biological parents when she wants.
“We have to make sure it’s safe and they’re healthy when she does, but we leave that open to her, kind of like a blended family,” Gregory said.
Gregory discussed the challenge of walking that line between protection and permission, ultimately landing on creating a safe atmosphere for her.
“Iasia is very capable of telling us where she’s at or how she’s feeling, or very open to us pointing out: ‘Hey, I don’t think you’re doing very well, you’re angry, or you’re alone a lot,’ and she’s very open to reflecting on that.”
In speaking about her experience with foster care, Mosley urged attendees considering trying respite care — offering more temporary stays for children — and foster care to consider giving attention to teenagers in the system who are often overlooked for younger children.
“They’re being overlooked just because, you know, they have stories that might scare people or because they’re older, but you know, getting to know a kid, no matter what age, is an amazing experience, and I think anybody should be able to experience that,” she said.
Ultimately, both mother and daughter agreed that the foster system gave Mosley a safe and loving space to reframe her life, find herself and move forward.
“Everyone is born into different circumstances, some better than others, some worse,” Mosley said. “I hope in sharing some of my story, some may be able to relate and find something that will let them know they’re not alone.”