Sunday, December 16, 2012

A Month of Small Celebrations - December 16


Small Celebration

There are times when my mind moves so quick that my typing cannot keep up with it. This is one of those times. Guess we will see how this works.

Since I learned about the deaths in Newtown, CT I have been on edge. I felt like I was wandering around lost and nothing I did could change that. And then finally, tonight I cried. I cried in pain and sadness for the parents left with out their children to care for and watch grow up. The tragic end to those 20 lives on Friday touched off my own grief and sorrow that I still carry with the death of my Eli. Tonight I stepped outside in the cool dark night and cried as memories of the morning of Eli's death ran through my head. His heart rate was slowing but when I sat next to him talking to him, touching him, he stabilized  He knew I was there. And it held his death at bay. For a little while. Until it didn't anymore. I remember sitting numbly on the couch in the room when his heart stopped and the medical team worked to revive him. I didn't cry. I didn't move. I just stared. When they were able to get his heart beating again I looked to the doctor and he nodded and I went back to his bedside. I talked to him, told him I loved him and that I would give him everything I had to help him fight. But if he needed to go I would be ok. He started to crash again and the doctor asked me if I wanted them to begin resuscitation again. I looked at his little body and I knew the fight was over. I screamed no, in a voice that still does not seem like it came from me. And that was it. They quickly removed him from all of the tubes attached to him, wrapped him in his star blanket and handed him to me to hold. He died in my arms. I can see all of this like it happened just moments ago and sometimes, like tonight,
 it feels like it was just moments ago.

So, why am I sharing this now? Because I finally cried the tears I needed to so that I could understand and share what I am feeling about what happened in Newtown. My situation is different but I understand the death of a child like only someone who has experienced the death of a child can. I am familiar with the road those 40 parents and hundreds of family members and friends will walk, crawl through and throw themselves down on in rage, hopelessness and bitter ugly grief. I am still on it. I feel their pain, truly feel it in my own body and I wish that somehow I could do something so they would not have to experience it too. But I can't. Not now. Their children are already gone from this earth. And there is nothing that can be done to change that. But I believe that there are things we can do as a society to try to stop it from happening again.

My small celebration tonight was to have my son fall asleep in my arms. Now that he is a big boy he does do that very often any more. But tonight, I got to hear him breathing, watch his eye lashes flutter. As he relaxed fully and completely in my arms, safe. For this moment, safe.  Which actually is not a small celebration but one of the biggest ones I could have.



This picture is of my Nolan at about 3 months old, or if he had been born on his due date, maybe a week old. This is how he fell asleep in my arms tonight. How I wish I had both my boys here to rock to sleep tonight.

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