The gift of optimism

Why the hell am I so optimistic anyways?

I have always said that I was a true optimist and the question does begged to be asked and again, I have another story to tell.

I was originally married at 19 and got pregnant with my first child at 20.

After having a perfectly normal 1st pregnancy I went into labour with my son and my entire world fell completely apart in the course of 8 hours.

During active labour while in transition, my son's heart-rate went screaming down to the low 60s and all I remember is breathing extra air and all of these bells going off and doctors running down the hallways not having the guts to look me in the eye and answer the question, "Is my baby all right?"

I was too far into labour to have an emergency cesarean section and my son was born shortly after that completely lifeless.

They did get his heart going again and within minutes he was being whisked away via air-ambulance to a far away hospital and I was left standing at the door to the hospital crying and bleeding and wondering what my baby actually looked like.

Within 48 hours of crying and holding his little hands and literally hundreds of tests, we were taken into a small room and told that our son was basically brain dead.

We opted to donate his organs and after lots of soul-searching we also decided to shut down the pumps that fed him his life via machines and IVs.

About an our prior to shutting it down, there was additional tests that had to be done to confirm brain death.

When ice chips were put into his ears one of his pupils dilated so he was deemed to be alive and not really brain dead. Oh the irony of that statement.

We shut down the support anyways and he continued to breathe.

This went on for a heart-breaking 18 months and nearly destroyed me inside.

It was heart-breaking to walk into a hospital room to see your son that has not once moved or made any gesture of any kind and his face is black and swollen and breaking open because he 'coded' a few hours ago and was almost dead but some 'Florence Nightengale' nurse came in and got him going again.

A time comes when you can no longer do this as a mom. As a breed, we are incapable of watching our own kids in agony and silently sit by and watch them suffer like that.

I woke up one night from a nightmare and decided that it was going to end.

I went into a lawyer and we got an injunction against the hospital and we removed our son from that hospital and put him into another.

Ironically, the only hospital that would take him in and stop feeding him was the same one where he was born.

He was transferred to the hospital and heavily sedated. He was given IV fluids but no food into the tube into his stomach.

We basically waited at home for him to die and it was most undoubtedly one of the hardest and most life-affirming things that I have ever done to date included.

One night I woke up at 2am unable to sleep and felt a need to write.

I got a pen and a piece of paper and wrote out the following like it was ingrained in my brain. It was like it had always been there and out it flowed in the form of a poem entitled, "The Gift"...

It reads as follows:

On the day you were born, the Lord Jesus above
Did look down from heaven and give you his love.
You begged him to take you gently by hand
He said, "Darling TJ, it is not in the plan".

He knew you were suffering but chose you to stay,
To give me a gift in your own special way.

You taught me compassion, how to love and to dream.
You taught me to hope although hopeless it seemed.

You make me grow up, feel pain and to pray
It was then that I realized that you could not stay.

Everyone was crying because it was oh so sad.
But these are sacrifices we make as a mom or as a dad.

I return to you my own special gift for everyone to see.
It does not compare to the one you gave, but it was meant to be.

My gift to you is accepting that you must be free from pain.
You gave me oh so very much. You did not die in vain.

The gift is from my very heart but oh, it hurts me so.
For I have to love you enough, TJ, to gently let you go......

Love Mom

About 2 hours later, the phone rang.

I did not need to answer the phone to find out that my son had passed away a short time ago.

The above poem was read at his eulogy and inscribed on his headstone.

I developed faith and perseverance and a whole lot of optimism having lived through that.

The world is a great place if we look at the positive things around us.

My son taught me so many things with the entire cumulation of those things being my pure and simple optimism for life and all that it entails.

I love you TJ...!!! I'd hope that I've done you proud.

Mom