Mom Reveals She's Forgiven Herself Over Final Words to Daughter, 10, Before She Died at Cheer Practice (Exclusive)

Tiana Johnson, who was already struggling with postpartum depression, had to navigate grief while blending families and expecting another baby

An expectant mom faced unthinkable grief with the unexpected death of her firstborn.

In the summer of 2022, Tiana Johnson and her family were in a period of adjustment. After welcoming a second daughter 10 years after her oldest, Nevaeh, Tiana was preparing for another set of changes with her family.

"I was on maternity leave and due to return since my second was 4 months old. My husband and I had just celebrated our one-year wedding anniversary — he also has two daughters from a previous relationship — so we were still settling into our new dynamic," she tells PEOPLE.

That August, Nevaeh had just started 5th grade at a new school. "She had a week and a day at the school before it happened," Tiana says of the tragic day at cheer practice.

The mom recalls a "very normal day, in a lot of senses," but admits she was struggling with postpartum depression. She'd recently found out she was expecting again and was 11 weeks pregnant and grappling with her changing family.

After picking her daughter up from school, Tiana says she got into an argument with Neveah over their dinner plans. Later that evening, Tiana dropped Nevaeh off at practice — and still remembers their final words to each other.

"I was still frustrated with her," Tiana candidly admits. "I told her, 'Get out, you're late. Have a good time. Goodbye.' I was in such a funk that I didn't even say, 'I love you.' "

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Tiana then headed to a friend's house and just 10 minutes later, she received a life-changing phone call.

"Her coach told me, 'She has a headache. She's crying,' which meant it was pretty bad, because Nevaeh had a very high pain tolerance. I'm a medical assistant and when I heard that she wasn't making sense, I thought, 'She's having heat stroke.' "

Tiana was just 10 minutes away. When she arrived at the high school where the team practiced, she saw a fire truck and hoped Nevaeh was being treated.

"I jumped out and ran over and she was on the floor. The firefighters were performing CPR and I just dropped to my knees. I was begging God not to take my baby. People who were there came to comfort me and turned me around so I couldn't see her. I was screaming and I told one of them I was pregnant. They got me water and sat me down and called my husband."

Because of her profession, Tiana was aware, "The longer they're down without a heartbeat, the worse it is." Five minutes in, Nevaeh was still getting medical attention.

"I didn't know how long she'd been down for before I got there, but I knew she hadn't gotten up yet, so that was very concerning for me."

At one point, Tiana glanced over and saw "blood coming from her nose and mouth," and grew more concerned.

"I knew something had to be really wrong. This wasn't just a heat stroke at this point. They were doing everything they could to bring her back."

"There had to be at least 150 people, parents and kids, standing there watching my child basically dying. I knew at that point she wasn't going to come out of this and be her normal self. She wasn't going to be Nevaeh."

Once they got a heartbeat, they moved quickly to bring Nevaeh to the local hospital. Tiana called Nevaeh's dad and other family members to meet her there. Gathered together at the hospital, they learned Nevaeh had a brain aneurysm.

It became clear that Nevaeh would require more treatment than the area hospital could provide, but the family struggled to secure care because of her prognosis.

"They didn't think her prognosis was good enough," she explains, until Sutter Medical Center in Sacramento, California, agreed to take her.

Hours later, the neurosurgeon came out to inform the family that sadly, Nevaeh could not be helped further. They decided against drainage after noting that "her brain had already swelled into her spinal cavity."

They were told "nothing was doing any job on its own anymore. Her body was not doing anything."

At that point, the family started discussing organ donation as a way of helping others, a big part of Nevaeh's legacy they continue to work on today. Nevaeh saved three lives with the donation of her heart, lungs and kidneys.

Amid her pain, Tiana sought answers. Doctors informed her it was estimated that Nevaeh was down for 30 minutes without heart activity.

"It didn't make any sense to me because I got there within 10 minutes," Tiana shares, noting the practice also didn't have an automated external defibrillator (AED) readily available. While the organization responsible for the cheer practice did have one, it was locked away in a storage closet, "football fields away" from where Nevaeh's aneurysm occurred.

Tiana would also learn that "there was a lot of commotion," when Nevaeh went down.

"They were trying to get kids away and things like that. The mom of a football player who was a nurse saw and ran over. Once she saw Nevaeh wasn't breathing, she started CPR. A dad, who is also certified in CPR, came over to help until the firefighters arrived."

Tiana struggled with "a lot of feelings that I was failed, that Nevaeh was failed."

Waterford High School shared a statement with PEOPLE about Nevaeh, writing, "Waterford is a close-knit community, and Nevaeh’s unexpected passing during the local youth league practice deeply affected us all. Her family's ability to create positive change from their profound loss is truly inspiring."

Neither the Waterford cheer program nor local law enforcement returned PEOPLE's request for comment.

In that time, community helped lift the family out of a dark time, while still supporting Tiana as she awaited her third baby.

"We were shocked by how much the community really came together to support us. We also had our personal support system. We moved back in with my parents for six months after Nevaeh was in the hospital," she shares.

"I also had a couple of good friends who watched my house and cleaned and came out. They did a meal train and that was sweet because we didn't have to buy a meal for two months. We're very lucky to have good friends and family that still, to this day, come over and clean up my house for me when I've just had a really rough week."

Now, Tiana is campaigning for AEDS at children's sporting facilities.

"An awesome team helped us get Nevaeh's Youth Sports Act passed. The legislator who took up our bill is Juan Alanis — he lives in our community and he really helped move this along. I think the other thing that worked to our advantage was America watching Damar Hamlin's life be saved by an AED. In front of thousands of people, he was saved from a cardiac event. I ask people, why shouldn't our children have that kind of care available to them when they're playing a sport?"

Tiana hopes other parents who hear her story take CPR certification seriously. "I always encourage parents, grandparents, whoever to be CPR certified — especially if they live more than five minutes away from a hospital, because it only takes five minutes to become brain dead from lack of heart activity."

She also encourages parents of young athletes to ask questions about policies around medical attention.

"Don't be afraid to ask, 'Where is your medic kit located? Where is your AED? What are your safety measures? Do your employees have their CPR certifications?' It's definitely a bigger deal in some sports and activities than others, but parents have the right to know these things. It could make the difference between whether or not you enroll your child."

Tiana has connected with the recipients of some of Nevaeh's organs, though she's still processing her feelings.

"I have heard from her heart recipient, who was a 17-year-old boy at the time who had been sick his whole life. I have his family on social media so I get to watch their journey. They all actually got Stitch from Lilo & Stitch, which was her favorite, along with her name to honor her. It was very sweet."

The bereaved mom notes she's "not quite ready" to meet any of them.

"We've had conversations with the heart recipient about wanting to meet. I feel that I want to wait until I can treat him like an actual person and not just the person with my daughter's heart."

Tiana admits that grappling with "the anger, the frustration and the sadness" is still difficult.

"I just want to wait to meet them until I can, without being any kind of angry," she explains, saying she's focused on continuing Nevaeh's best qualities, like a love of giving back.

"She was really into giving. It was something that her and I would do together. It filled our hearts to help others. Before she passed, we had done some blanket drives and we did hygiene packs and I wanted to continue to honor what we were doing together, but for her and share her light."

Tiana wants people to know her daughter "loved her friends and praying for others."

"She wanted to be a special needs teacher. She genuinely couldn't understand why people were mean to each other. She was a natural mediator, she had a way of being able to bring all different kinds of people together. I just want to keep doing that type of work for her, because it does help heal as well. I get to go out into the community and share her."

Tiana has also started to share Nevaeh's story, as well as her own experience as a grieving mom, on TikTok.

"I shared a little bit when she first passed and then I tried to keep quiet. But I started sharing more again and it's been very healing to read the comments. People pray for us and those who have experienced brain aneurysms — because I always say how brain aneurysms are very unforgiving and how fast it takes somebody. To hear other people's stories, even some who have survived despite the high death rate, is amazing."

Tiana has also connected with other bereaved parents, and those connections "make me feel like I'm not alone."

"It's so sad in the sense that other people have lost children too, that they're in the same club. But it also helps to know that somebody out there has also experienced this traumatic loss. Some of these people have lost their kids 20 years ago, and going through year one and year two, it reminds me you can get there. You feel like you're dying every day you wake up and have to take a deep breath and know part of you is missing."

Others in the community have helped her learn, "It'll always hurt, but it won't always hurt this bad."

"I don't ever want Nevaeh to be forgotten. She had 10 years, almost 11 here on Earth, and I will make sure everybody knows she had those years here. She had a lot more life to live. And that's my hope for others too, to be able to express themselves and remember their child after a loss."

Today, Tiana and her husband are continuing to focus on their blended family, having welcomed a son in spring 2023.

"Blending families with child loss is very difficult to navigate. We're still trying to figure it out, truthfully. Having to split her ashes between me and her dad was horrifying and traumatic for me, because we don't really speak often anymore and that makes me sad."

She continues, "Losing a child with divorce, when you're not with the person you shared your child with, is hard. I would encourage that if you've lost a child with someone and you're in a different relationship now, you should still be able to have some type of communication because regardless of what's changed, that's something you will always share."

Tiana hopes parents also learn to "practice forgiveness," especially of themselves. "I argued with her that day and I always struggle with that," she admits.

"I didn't get to say, 'I'm sorry' and I'm not the only one. I want others to know not to dwell on those mistakes because you never know."

"I like to believe she probably already had gotten over it. So forgive yourself for any mistakes — don't be hard on yourself for trying to parent your kid because you can lose a kid at any time, any point, no exceptions. And you still have to parent. You still have to be that adult figure for your children."

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