Today is my first grandson’s 7th birthday. My daughter was married six years before she could conceive a baby, we were all so excited when he arrived.
She had some problems, so I took her to the Dr. her liver was failing they had to do an immediate C-Section. The family gathered outside waiting until the little guy was delivered. When her husband came out of the operating room, he looked ashen and asks everyone to leave the room but me. He told me that the baby had some problems, and they were going to have to take him to primary children’s hospital. Little did we know he was born with HPE – when my daughter woke up, they wheeled Hunter in his incubator to her room; he was so sweet – she couldn’t hold him, but at least she could see him before he left.
We didn’t know the severity of what was to come, but I told her things would be OK. And so our journey went – each time we had a doctor’s consultation it seemed there was more bad news. And each time I told her to hang on we would get through this there has to be a treatment…
I couldn’t have known there would come a time when we had to accept he was not going to grow up to be an adult. We had hoped we could keep him for a few years at least we worked hard to keep him, as long as we could.
The hardest thing in the world is being a mother and realizing you cannot make it better for your child; you cannot take away the pain or shield them from emotions that will rip them apart.
Hunter made it through his first Thanksgiving – my daughter has a picture of my mom holding little Hunter on her mantel. We had people donated items, and we had fundraisers for him. Then he was able to make it
through Christmas. With all of the medical bills my kids were having a hard time financially my mom was the catalyst and my aunt she told her family that the only thing she wanted for Christmas was to give gifts to my daughters little family.
They collected money, gifts and that Christmas Hunter had an amazing Christmas – he love the bright colored toys and watch as his parents unwrapped gift after gift.
Then on a cold Friday in January I received a call from my daughter she said “mom I think Hunter is in trouble and he isn’t going to make it, please come”. So I rushed to her home and sat with her and Hunter. When he did pass my daughter was holding him in her arms. First she said I smell grandma (who had just recently passed away) then Hunter rose up his arms to the sky and breathed his last breath.
My daughter was holding him sobbing saying I am so sorry hunter I am so sorry. I was holding them both of them.
He was wrapped in a very soft light blue blanket. I remembered when I was at my Grandma’s and she passed away the coroner came to the house and put her in a body bag – I couldn’t stand it – it was horrible, painful and tore me apart. Because of this experience I was worried. I didn’t want my daughter to hand my grandson to anyone else.
I told her I would take him to where he needed to go – my husband was there by that time and he drove me up to my mom’s she wanted to see him one more time. Then we took him to the mortuary, I was in shock I had to hand that little guy to a guy who met me at the door it was late at night.
He was 9 months old when he left us.
I went back to my daughters and spent the next few days – that night we all went to bed together. I slept on one side, my daughter in the middle and her husband on the other side. It was just natural as we held each other she sobbed and the helplessness I felt was overwhelming.
This was going to be another tough year…
