Mom's Halloween Displays Brought Her Son Joy. After He Died, She Decided to Continue the Tradition 'in His Honor'

• Since 2018, Shelly Jimenez has been creating elaborate Halloween displays in her backyard to cheer up her grown son Chris, who had serious health problems and was losing his sight
• After her son’s death in May, Shelly wasn’t sure if she would be able to continue the tradition, but eventually decided it was something she wanted to do.
• “I did this in his honor and for my community, but it was also very therapeutic for me,” she tells PEOPLE.

Every year, the Jimenez family packed their twins into the family van to see Halloween displays around San Jose, California, until their son, who had serious health problems, could no longer leave the house.

“He loved lights because he had such minimal vision in his left eye, lights always intrigued him,” mom Shelly Jimenez tells PEOPLE. “Whether it was around town or on our many trips to Disneyland, it always made him happy.”

So mom Shelly decided to bring her son the twinkling lights and magical sounds of the holidays.

Since 2018, their Halloween displays have thrilled and delighted neighbors and visitors alike. Creepy clowns, deranged dolls, giant skeletons and sinister creatures littered their yard – all to Chris’s delight.

Chris with the creepy clown.

The Jimenez family

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Shelly, 55, from San Jose, and husband Sal, 56, first met when they were teenagers. When they wanted to start a family, they turned to in vitro fertilization (IVF). In 1995, their twins Chris and Kayla were born at just 26 weeks.

“Everything that could go wrong with a premature baby went wrong with Chris,” says Shelly.

He was on a ventilator for almost 10 months, diagnosed with cerebral palsy, lung damage, retinopathy and needed a feeding tube. Later, after an operation he had when he was 9 months old, his brain was severely damaged.

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Their neonatal doctor recommended that he be taken off life support and institutionalized if he survived. But, she says, “Sal and I wanted to bring him home and we found a doctor who would fight for Chris.

“We brought Chris home on Christmas Eve 1995, and it was the best Christmas ever,” she adds.

Shelly put college and her plans to become a nurse on hold to care for her babies. Kayla, who did not have the same extensive complications as her brother, has mild cerebral palsy and some learning disabilities.

“She’s an amazing watercolor artist and plays guitar, ukulele and sings,” says mom. However, Chris always needed 24-hour care.

Chris, left, with twin Kayla in October 2008 at the Grand Californian at Disneyland.

The Jimenez family

By 2019, Chris had started to slow down a lot. Shelly says, “He just had no energy left, and the vision in his left eye started to fail.” In return, she amped up the decorations so he could “have fun in the backyard, interacting with animatronics and bright lights.”

“We didn’t know the exact time frame when Chris would lose his sight,” says Shelly. “I wanted the last visuals in his brain to be of bright lights.”

In 2020, Chris lost his sight and began to show signs of early dementia. Still, she kept the Halloween displays for him.

Chris, left, with mom Shelly.

The Jimenez family

She rounded off each year with a different scenario, using props and animatronic figures that she furnished in accordance with that year’s theme. There was a year of pumpkins and scarecrows, a scary graveyard, a 12-foot skeleton display, and it even brought back clowns.

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Last year she chose decor featuring a swamp monster with its own pond and a scary old guy in a rocking chair. Shelly says that by then Chris was completely housebound and had “pretty much withdrawn from everything in his day-to-day life.”

She was going to go with the witches this year. Then Chris passed away in May. He was 29 years old.

Shelly, left, with her son Chris on the day he died.

The Jimenez family

“The last few months of his life he was mentally lost and just suffering so much,” says Shelly, choking back tears.

“It was so devastating because he was so full of life, never complained and had such a good life, especially in the early years when he wasn’t so sick,” she adds. “Seeing him in his last years, how mentally and physically broken down he was, was heartbreaking.”

After her son’s death, Shelly’s days were “long and lonely” and she remembers being glued to her couch as she struggled with the void in her life. Then, with Halloween approaching, she figured this was the time of year to focus on bringing the holiday to life for Chris.

Then she thought, “I’m going to make an exhibition.”

This year’s memorial to Chris Jimenez.

The Jimenez family

She restarted it bit by bit and brought back her original ideas from 2018: creepy dolls, creepy nursery rhymes and smiling animatronics.

“That’s actually how it started with Chris and I just thought, in his memory, I’d do what really made him smile that year,” says Shelly.

Husband Sal and daughter Kayla were happy to see her back doing something she loves.

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“I knew he had to do something. I’m working, I’m busy, but I think about him every night,” Sal tells PEOPLE. “Yesterday we went out and people were coming to her. They want to take pictures with her and they just have to meet her.”

And that means everything to Shelly, who says she thinks the Halloween display is a wonderful way to remember Chris.

“I restarted and took my mind off the sadness,” says Shelly. “I did this in his honor and for my community, but it was also very therapeutic for me.”

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Source: HIS Education