Donovan

7 years, 6 months, and 19 days ago

I don’t realize how used to the constant sound of machines I’ve gotten until now—when there are no more sounds. The monitoring continues, just outside the room where it can’t “intrude” on this moment. This moment that I wish wasn’t happening.

I am a kind of numb I never knew existed. For four days, I have prayed and prayed and prayed some more for a miracle, and every single one has gone unanswered.

I’d known it was bad when Jack and Dan showed up at my door, but I wasn’t prepared for the reality of arriving at Children’s Hospital to the news that my son needed bilateral below the knee amputations. In the hours and days since, things haven’t gotten any better. My sons mangled and bruised from head to toe body cannot recover, and now his precious life is coming to an end. Brady has no brain activity and with the machines that have done all the work for him now off, he will die within minutes.

If hell exists it can’t be any worse than knowing that there’s no hope. For all intents and purposes, my son has been gone since the moment that squad car drove into the park, but I fought to believe that something miraculous would occur. It didn’t and I feel the weight of the decision I had to make like an albatross around my neck. I know that Joel is responsible for my son’s condition, but I’m the one who had to okay turning off support. He’s about to die and it’s my fault.

There’s footage of the incident since someone from the other side of the park who happened to be recording his kid playing basketball turned when he saw the police car and got the whole thing. I can’t watch it—not now and maybe not ever—but Dan came and told me that Allison’s cause of death was due to her jumping in front of Brady to shield him the very moment she realized what was happening. In the last second of her life, she sprang into action like any good parent would, something that I know I should be grateful for.

I’m not grateful, though. I’m angry—and most of that anger is with myself. What kind of a father am I that I ever allowed her to have the flimsy visitation schedule she wanted? Why didn’t I tell her to fuck off the first time she disappeared for months on end? Barring that, why didn’t I fight harder or do more to get Joel’s badge revoked? Why didn’t I know what a fucking danger he was?

I failed at the most important job a person can have, and that failure led to this.

It’s been six minutes since the last machine was turned off, and every one has felt like a hundred years. I thought the removal of life support would be quick but it’s not, and each stage of this has felt like a descent down into another layer of hell.

Watching my family say goodbye to Brady has been one of the hardest things I’ve ever gone through. I’m doing my fucking best not to lose it with the six of us gathered here around his bed—I’d tried to get Julie not to stay because she is barely a teenager. I think she’s too young for this, but she insisted that she wanted to be here to the very end. I feel like I’m crumbling, and the idea that I might lose it in front of her is making me feel worse.

Leaning in close, I rub my nose against my son’s forehead before I put my lips next to his ear. Soon he will be gone and I will never have the privilege of doing this again. No more goodnight kisses. No more high fives at the door to his classroom. No more Bob the Builder marathons. No more life.

“It’s okay to go,” I lie. “Your mom will be up there waiting for you.”

God, she better fucking be there, and she better hold him and love him and do all the things she didn’t do when he was alive.

I want to remind him that I’ll be there soon, I’ve already whispered that to him dozens of times since the decision to end support was made, but I can’t do that in front of my family.

Seven minutes later, he’s gone—and all of my hopes and dreams go with him.

The silence in the room is broken by the sound of sobbing. It takes a while for me to realize that it’s coming from me.

A medium sized child’s casket is four feet long. Not even in my worst nightmares did I ever think I’d know this, but right now that measurement is playing on repeat in my head as I stare at the one in front of me. That tiny coffin holds my entire world, but in a matter of minutes, the priest will finish his graveside sermon and I’ll have no choice but to watch it being lowered into the ground.

I was certain it would be impossible to feel any more pain than what I’m already feeling. I was wrong. I knew this was coming—how could I not when the last several days have been about planning this funeral— but I’m in no way prepared.

My mother is on one side of me and Julie is on the other. I suspect my family made the decision to have my cousin where she is with an eye to keeping me from freaking out, but I’m not sure how much longer that’s going to work. I’m crumbling with every passing second.

“We have to go.”

I nod at my father but don’t move. How can I leave my son here? Physically, I don’t think I can do it.

“I just… I want to be down there with him,” I croak.

“Honey, you’re scaring me,” Mom whispers.

God, please help me. I failed as a father and now I’m failing as a son. My mom is wrecked in a way that hurts to see. Instead of making this easier on her, I’m making it harder. Realizing that I have to leave my son in order to save my mother further pain, I step back from the graveside and turn away.

Each step is torture and I feel like my heart is being torn from my body.

“Donovan.”

I jolt awake, surprised to see Mom standing in the doorway to Brady’s room. Like every other day since he passed, for the first few seconds, I wonder if it was all a terrible fucking dream. Looking down, I realize that I passed out in his bed. I came in here and laid down when we got back from the funeral. I didn’t even take off my suit. I just planted my six foot one ass in my son’s toddler bed, grabbed his pillow, the one with the dinosaurs on it, and sobbed.

Sitting up, I nod at my mom. “I’m awake.”

Stepping inside, she shuts the door behind her before she crosses the room and sits next to me on Brady’s race car bed.

Taking my hand, she turns to face me. “I want you to listen to me,” she says.

I squeeze her hand to let her know I understand.

“Brady is gone,” she whispers.

Other than those few seconds between being asleep and being awake, there isn’t a time when I am not painfully aware of that fact.

“Because of that,” she continues, “you know something that no parent should ever, ever know—and that’s what it’s like to lose a child. You might hate me for what I’m about to say, but I’d hate myself more if I didn’t do it.”

Looking at her closely, I furrow my brow. “What is it, Mom?”

“Don’t do to me what’s been done to you,” she whimpers. “Don’t take my son away.”

It’s like a kick to the chest, so much so that she might just as well have screamed it. I’ve never been more ashamed than I am right now. She knows I want to kill myself and knowing exactly what that’s doing to her destroys me. I’d have sworn I had no more tears to cry, but I would’ve been wrong. I break down again, my body shaking as I sob.

Somehow, some way, I have to figure out how to survive this life without my son. If I don’t, it will destroy my mother—and I’m not selfish enough to make that choice.