You tell me that it's time to get over it. You tell me that David wouldn't want to see me like this. You tell me that I'm not helping myself to keep dwelling on it, and that it's time to move on. You tell me that I shouldn't think about him or talk about him so much, that's he's gone and I should get on with my life; afterall, I have two other sons who need me. You say that God works in mysterious ways and that he wouldn't give me any more than I can bear.
What do you know? Have you ever been told that your child has multiple birth defects and may not live to be a year old? Have you ever had your baby rushed from one hospital to another suffering from congestive heart failure? Have you ever sat in a room with specialists trying to explain your child's condition and that the next couple of hours will tell whether he lives or dies? Have you ever been unable to sleep, fearing that the phone will ring with the news that your baby is dying (again) and to get to the hospital ASAP!?! Have you ever had your baby to finally make it home, to get sick again, be rushed back to the hospital, struggle and fight to live for 19 days, only to have him recover be prepared for discharge, only to have something else to go wrong?
Have you ever received a phone call at 5 am telling you your baby is in critical condition, get there because he may not be alive when you arrive? Have you ever had your baby to undergo emergency surgery, against all odds survive the surgery only to slowly get worse throughout the day, slip into a coma and die later in the night in your arms while you beg God not to take him away from you? Have you ever had to leave a hospital once your child has died, call family and friends, go home and see the crib that he shared with his twin brother, knowing that he will never sleep in it again? Have you ever had to tell your oldest son that his baby brother died during the night and then cry as you try to explain why he died?
Have you ever had to make funeral arrangements for your baby, pick out a casket, and wonder how they could ever make caskets that small, and not believing that your child will be placed in there soon? Have you ever had to select the last outfit that your baby will ever wear? To go to the funeral, wishing, praying, begging that it is a bad dream and that you will wake up? Did you have to go to the gravesite and say goodbye to a life that was once alive and well inside of you, and feel as if you had abandoned your baby once you left the cemetary?
Did you think about all of the things that you will never see, the first tooth, first words, walking, hugging, school, grandchildren? Have you felt as if your very soul was ripped apart, devastated by the loss?
If you havent' then don't tell me to get over it!! Don't tell me that it's time to move on and stopping thinking about it!! No, you can't "IMAGINE" what I am going through, how I feel! Believe me, losing a child is not something that you want to go through! This is not something that I can "get over" on a certain timetable! My baby David has died, and that is something that I am forced to live with, not because I want to, but because I have no other choice in the matter! Not a day goes by that I wish that I could have traded places with him!
So please, be patient with me when I speak David's name, or visit his grave, or cry! Don't run away or try to change the subject. Allow me the time that I need to grieve for my son. Yes, someday I may smile again. And yes, there will be days when I will think of him and what could have been and what was and cry. Just be there for me, to hold my hand, or to lend me your shoulder to cry one, and remember, I will never be the person that I once was! I have been permanently changed! Right now I'm not living, I'm just "existing" through this life until David and I can be together again forever!
Bonnie Randolph
