On the drive home from work this evening I started trying to replay the conversations, the phone calls, Dadda and I had immediately after leaving the hospital on January 26, 2011. How did we talk to our friends? Who did we call?
This line of thought opened up a whole stream of memories I had pushed aside. I forgot about calling my boss in the moments after they pronounced you dead. When I walked out to the ambulance bay, across the driveway in the frigid January air. The exhaust and diesel fumes were overwhelming. But, there I stood, sobbing into my cell phone at 7:00 am. He wasn't at the office yet and I clearly caught him off guard. Our jovial work relationship prompted him to answer with a sarcastic remark, until he heard me choke out, "Connor died this morning."
That phrase is one that came out of my mouth repeatedly that day. As we called friends we had just seen days earlier. Family several states away. All of them picking up their phones with a smile when they saw our number, only to be greeted with that awful, blunt statement.
And then...they cried. And supported us. And came to St. Louis to bid you farewell, hug Momma and Dadda, and try to somehow understand what happened. They hugged their own children a little harder. Watched their children sleep. Checked on them throughout the night. Because, if it can happen to Peanut it can happen to any of us.
Those initial phone calls are nothing you ever prepare for, or even think about, in the grand plan of life. Maybe a phone call about an aging parent or ill relative, but never ever ever your 16.5 month old, healthy little boy. I wish now I had known a better, more gentle way to place those calls. But, then again, nothing about your loss has been soft or kind.
Peanut, I miss you so much. This has been a tough week...maybe due to the summer-like weather? Or the approach of Mother's Day? I keep picturing you as you should be today. Marching towards age 3, talking and running and full of personality. A little boy. My little boy.
I love you. Bunches and bunches of noodles. To the moon - and back!
- Momma
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| Christmas 2009 |
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