That Day Again

Yes it is that day again and again I am confronted with the absolute realisation that I am truly not yet fixed.  It seems like yesterday and it feels like a hundred years ago that I last held Frankie in my arms, but as of today it has been nine years.  I am sorry.  I am tired tonight.  I am still heart sick.  I miss my little man.

Here is a part of my book.  I hope it will stand in for me tonight.

As Frankie crept closer and closer to death, time distorted. Emotions are strange and complex. Breathing doesn’t just stop as it does on the TV. There is no dramatic sudden change; breathing one minute and not the next. Breaths just get further and further apart. There is no dramatic heartbeat and sudden alarming straight line. Heartbeats just become erratic and if you are in any hospital worth its salt, there will be no monitor to tell you when his heart actually stops. Between each of those last breaths, over and over that whole day, part of you prays that this will be the last and at the same time you hold your own breath waiting for your child’s next breath. Time seems to expand and contract. Each breath seems to take an hour but when you remember to look at the clock, suddenly you have been there forever.

But there is a time when you realize that there will be no more, and in that moment, time stopped. It seemed the world stopped spinning and the noises of life were quiet. There was a moment of peace as I realized that Frankie’s job was done. That moment of utter relief, that all I had prayed for in the last few hours had come true; my little boy had stopped hurting. But it is just a moment. My world and my time stopped, held its breath and then imploded. Suddenly it was about me and I was lost. I had no idea how anyone survives that sort of pain. All there was left was the tenacious necessity of my body to breathe. With no thought behind it and my soul crying out for it just to be done, there it was: Breathe In. Breathe Out. Breathe In. Breathe Out. Over and over again, no matter how much it hurts and I won’t deceive you, it really hurts. It is a physical, mental, visceral pain that has no solution. But, as my little boy stopped his fight for breath, my struggle began. My brain compartmentalizes but this time all of the compartments had to focus on the same thing; one breath after another. Dr Sibley came forward and listened to his chest and said the words that I still hear echo in my dreams;

“There is no little heart beating in there anymore”