4/24/2014
For Beydn
You died. It was a sunny Saturday lunchtime, and we held onto
you- hands, arms, feet, whatever our fingers could find. And we let you
die. As much as we’ve ever let you do anything. You will never have
to know what that’s like. I’m glad for that. The tiniest glimmer of a
blessing in this illogical hell. We stayed with you, wanting it to be
over, wanting it to never end. You died, and we lived through it.
You were born on a Friday, Beydn. The weekend of a prom that
I didn’t go to. That’s how young we all were. The weekend of
Mother’s Day, your mommy’s perfect present. Come Saturday the hospital
was packed with half the world wanting to see you, to touch you. Just
like it was the Saturday you left it. I can think of half a dozen people who
were in the room when I was there that nearly summer evening.
Not one of them could get close enough. And it was like that when
you died. If we could have crawled under your skin we
would’ve. We would have breathed for you, given you our
lungs if we could. It doesn’t make sense that nothing in this world
of technology made that possible. The ventilator isn’t actually doing
anything. How did I think that? It doesn’t make any
sense. It doesn’t make any sense that we were there at all, there in that
hospital room with you only ten years from the beginning.
I did not carry you in my body. I can not speak for you mama
because I didn’t grow you. I will not speak for your daddy because I know
his ache is worse than any words I have. It’s not my place to speak for
your stepdad; I didn’t get to see you with him every day. But I will
speak for myself, and there were a thousand things I thought I would get to
talk to you about. There were a thousand things I wanted to explain to
the man you were becoming, boy with hands and feet as big as mine. I
thought you would outgrow us all- in a lot of ways. Now I can only put
down in black and white the part of me that belonged just to you, the part that become a parent without knowing one May day. I will
be 70 writing letters to a 10 year old boy. I can do it until I die.
I did not carry you in my body, but I carried you. In my arms. In
my heart. I don’t see any reason to stop now.
So, when I say that I half
expect to see you here again, or that I partly anticipated to take you home
with us, whole and happy, even in the moment that you died, I don’t say these
things because I’m crazy. It’s just that they seem as possible as any of
it. Or more. Just as possible as you having leukemia, more
probable than your daddy’s shaky voice on the phone, way more feasible than a
fungal infection I never even knew existed. And when I say a part of
me looks for you to come in the door any minute it’s not that I don’t remember
the truth. There's just a hope that won’t be still, a wish I’ll always
have. We were always waiting to see you;
there's no way to erase it. Not any more than there's a way to erase you.
Annie
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