A Life Brief, A Love Eternal

Mes'sia Jama'al Washington(6), born October 30, 2019 at 3:45AM, passed away on December 17, 2025 at 4:23PM, leaving a light that will never dim. Known affectionately as "Number 1", "SI/SI" and "Little Scientist", Mes'sia was a joyful, lovable kindergartner who delighted in doing math, playing with magnets, learning about the planets and arranging colors into perfect rainbow spectrums.

A very smart, high-functioning autistic child, he brought curiosity, wonder, and laughter into every room he entered and changed the lives of his family and loved ones in ways that cannot be measured.

Imagine you are shopping in Walmart and you receive a call: “We need you at the school now  something is happening with Mes’sia.” His teacher said he had an energetic morning and ate all his lunch. Suddenly, during a physical education class, he collapsed. Emergency responders worked to revive him multiple times at the school, in the ambulance en route to the hospital, and again after arrival. For a while he became somewhat stable as we waited for an airlift to a more advanced hospital in Orlando. When the flight crew arrived and began preparing him for transfer, his heart rate dropped and God called him home.

Initially, doctors suspected pneumonia may have contributed and that he had gone into cardiac arrest, so no definitive cause of death was given while the medical examiner completed the investigation. After the medical examiner’s examination, samples were sent to the University of Florida for further testing. On March 17, 2026, we received the results: the tests showed viral myocarditis with tracheitis‑bronchitis, a rare and serious condition in children. The medical examiner ultimately ruled his death natural causes.

To honor Mes'sia's memory and continue his spirit of possibility, The World is Mine Foundation will be established in his name to provide comprehensive services for special needs children and preserve the legacy of a boy who taught everyone around him how bright the world can be.

He was preceded in death by his grandfather, Woodrow George Washington IV and uncle Quentin Washington.

Mes'sia leaves to forever cherish his memory, father, Jarvis Washington; mother, De'Quessence Whitfield; brother, Zy'on Washington; sister,

Ja'Sharri Washington; grandmothers, Ruby Washington and Lakesha Nelson; grandfather, Derrick Whitfield; great-grandfather, Hosie

Rhodes, Jt.; great-grandmother, Ruby Rhodes and Cheryl Robbins; Godmother, Mary Foster, as well as a host of aunts, uncles, cousins, special friends and classmates.