Death and life's lessons

It’s 2:58 AM and I’m currently working on a 15 page paper for one of my classes. I received a wake up call on what it means to be a parent, a student, and an employee within the past two weeks. A week and a half ago, I buried my son. I never held my son while he was alive. I never told him “I love you” where he could hear me. The first picture I have of him is right after the doctor induced labor. Right after I cut the umbilical cord. Right after they placed him away from us because my wife wasn’t prepared to see him yet.
I’m up because I don’t have a chance for a break. I can’t get a break. And even now, working on my Ph.D., my teacher feels like I should push through and complete the work that I started. I’m not sure if it’s because I’m a man, my skin color, or whether it’s because I already have pre-existing arrangements due to having a mental illness. I’d rather not think about it. Life goes on for the living. In this society, you don’t get the chance to grieve. You work, you continue to work, and then when it’s all said and done, you regret not taking the time to rest; to smell the roses.
Everything moved so quickly over the last several weeks. “I want to prepare you for the things that we’re seeing in the sonogram”. These were not the words I wanted to hear. We’re at week 18, and this was the last thing I wanted to hear. I had just come to terms with the everything else. What followed was a 15 minute discussion about the latest findings. We had been at the doctor’s office for over two hours by this time; sitting in the exam room for about an hour before I went to go find someone.
The hole in my son’s heart had gotten bigger. I noticed that without the doctor saying anything. In hind sight, the doctor may have noticed some things and didn’t mention it. The doctor pointed out that our son wasn’t developing the way that he should. He was smaller than normal, and had microcephaly. He was also missing three of his fingers on one of his hands. Just about every week we have been to the doctor, we were told that there was something else wrong with our child. All of the optimism that I used to have, I lost. For weeks I’ve been telling myself and my wife that I think everything would be fine, even though the doctors have been trying to prepare us otherwise.
My wife has been in a bit of pain this morning. She went too long without eating again. “I haven’t felt the baby move today. Maybe he moved while I was moving. I’m trying not to worry yet. This is rough.”, she said. “I know, baby”, I reply. I don’t want to think that the baby’s heart has stopped. We were warned that was a possibility and that my wife is being monitored for preeclampsia just in case, which has led to me to start taking her blood pressure. “I know, baby” is my normal answer. I don’t know what else to say.
The next weekend sneaks up on us. We were supposed to go to the Science and Engineering Festival with the kids today. They’ve been looking forward to it. It has been put off until tomorrow, so the kids are watching “The Wiz Live” for the time being. They missed it the first time it came on when my little sister and her children were over. I’m sitting at my desk writing while listening to Tupac’s “Life Goes On”. I remember when this first came out, I used to listen to it all of the time. It was one of my favorite songs. It came out around the time a friend of mine was killed by a train. Tupac has always been one of my favorite rappers. The music transitions to Slaughterhouse — Goodbye. That song has a lot of personal meaning to me.
That weekend, I finally told the kids what was going on with the pregnancy. To say they were distraught is an understatement. Both of them are crushed. I told my step-son first. Despite only being in his life for about a year now, he’s extremely attached to me. Probably not more than my step-daughter, though. I thought my step-daughter took it the hardest because she cried the most. What I didn’t see is how it was affecting him. This evening he was crying again. However, he only does so around his mother.
At week 20, I thought we hit a milestone. We’re halfway there. We went in for a regularly scheduled checkup to check the baby’s heart rate. The doctor just mentioned that it’s about 130. That’s low. It doesn’t register in my head. She doesn’t mention that it’s low and I knew it didn’t sound like it regularly did. I’m convinced that all of this time, the doctors knew something.
When I started writing this, we were sitting in labor and delivery in our room, listening to the sound of crying babies. We had been there since 7:00 AM that morning. My son was delivered at 12:15 AM on April 30th. Two days after my wife’s birthday. We held him. We talked to him. We spent as much time as we possibly could. My wife wasn’t ready to leave him; neither was I.
The next and the last time I would see my son was at the funeral home. They had already picked him up and he was waiting for me. I brought everything I needed to wash and shroud him. A friend was there to support me and to help me out. After I finished, and I placed him in his coffin wrapped up, and we drove to the cemetary. My wife’s family was already there. As I led the funeral prayer for my son, my voice cracked. I had to fight back tears. We placed handfuls of dirt in his grave and made a supplication. When the bulldozer finally covered his grave, the tears started to roll down my cheeks. It was finally goodbye.
My son was buried on May 3rd. It hasn’t been two weeks. I’m still processing everything. Yet, I’m sitting here trying to finish homework for school. This experience has changed me. I’m struggling to finish my schoolwork. I struggled to return to work. I struggled just to continue going on day to day. But I have to. Finishing my degree program doesn’t have the same significance it used to have for me. You work and accumulate debt and a higher education just to pay off the debt in the name of being educated. But now I’m back at square one.
God willing, I’ll see you in paradise John Butler Adam Williams. I’m looking forward to it. I love you, son.