***
Two days later
Tai’s hand felt like a solid weight in mine.
He was being as solid as a rock, which was exactly what I needed.
He hadn’t left my side since I’d gotten the news.
News I still hadn’t been able to comprehend.
How?
How could he leave me?
How could this have happened?
These questions flew through my brain, hitting me over and over again like physical blows.
I’d known about the complications.
I was a nurse, after all.
I knew, just like most everyone did, that there was always a possibility of complications with any surgery.
Always.
But I never thought that there would’ve been a complication in Colt’s surgery.
“I’m so sorry,” the doctor said. “Colt had a reaction to the anesthesia that caused him to go into cardiac distress. We weren’t able to get his heart re-started.”
Those words haunted my dreams.
We weren’t able to get his heart re-started.
More was said after that, but I’d shut down.
No, it couldn’t be.
Not my baby.
Not that beautiful bundle of life.
Tai’s hand found its way into mine, and I squeezed for all I was worth, which was pathetically not much.
I hadn’t found it in me to eat since Colt had passed.
Right at that very moment, I was so nauseous from hunger that I could barely stand up on my own two feet.
Something that Tai must’ve realized because both of his arms wrapped around my body to help hold me up.
“It’s not often that God calls such a young soul home,” the preacher said at the closing point of Colt’s funeral. “But there are times, when God feels that it’s a person’s time. Everybody has a certain time, and nobody knows just how much time we’re promised on this earth.”
A tear slipped down my cheek.
“I had the privilege of baptizing Colton Aaron Davis when he was a little over three months old,” Preacher Mike said. A man who’d held Colton the day after he was born and cooed over his tiny form. “And it breaks my heart,” the preachers voice cracked. “That I had to tell him goodbye so early.”
Another tear pooled in my eye.
“His mother asked me to read this note to you. She wanted you all to know her son like she did. And since she doesn’t think she can make it through the reading of the letter, I’m going to do that for you now.”
Colton Aaron Davis was born just 8 months ago. He was eight pounds and five ounces with the curliest locks of hair I’d ever seen.
He started rolling over when he was four weeks old.
Crawling when he was six months old. And pulling up when he was seven months old.
He loved to hear me read Goodnight Moon to him.
He loved to watch Mickey Mouse.
He loved to eat Goldfish in his high chair right next to me while I ate my dinner, and then fed him his.
Dogs and firefighters were his favorite things in the world.
I’d point out an ambulance or a fire truck going down the road and he’d go shrill with excitement.
A very special man gave him a firefighter bear when he was in the hospital, and not once, in the short time that he had it, did he ever let it go for more than five seconds.
Tai’s hands convulsed around mine.
I never got to watch him walk.
I never got to watch him hit his first baseball at his first little league game.
I never got to kiss his first skinned knee.
I’ll never teach him how to drive, or take him to his first day of school. And I’ll never watch him walk across the stage at graduation or dance with him at his wedding.
But it also means that he won’t suffer anymore. I won’t have to watch him wither away, or try to defeat a cancer that shouldn’t have been inside him in the first place.
He’ll never cry because it hurts anymore, and I’ll never have to wonder if he’s in pain.
Because he’ll be in heaven, and he’ll never hurt again.
He’ll be able to run and play with his grandfather. He’ll be able to look down on me and I’ll know that he’s in a better place.
I thank you all for being here to celebrate Colton’s life, because he was the most special little boy in the world.
Run fast, my boy. Bask in the rainbows and sunshine. Say hi to Pawpaw, and hug him tight for me. Think of me, because there won’t be one second that passes that I won’t be thinking of you.
I collapsed.
Tai caught me and turned me.
I buried my face into his neck and cried.
“Now, I ask you to let the family leave first once the pallbearers make their way down the aisle. Thank you,” Preacher Mike said.
I was passed to Tai’s brother, Jack, as Tai walked to the casket with four of the six men that’d come to visit with Colton while he was in the hospital.
Oh, how he would’ve loved to see Tai in his uniformed glory.
All the shiny buttons and brass was beautiful on him.
They said some words that I couldn’t quite make out, and then they easily picked up my baby’s casket.
My hands dug into Jack’s strong forearm, and his arm around my back tightened as I watched them walk away with my baby.
I followed, gathering strength now from the man at my side, only holding him slightly as he walked with me down the aisle.
I stopped at the top of the church’s steps, the one I attended when I could, and gasped when I saw the gleaming red fire truck they set Colt into.
It was fitting.
Soul wrenching music started to play, and I gasped when I saw Allen, the fire chief, start to play on bagpipes directly behind the truck.
I cried harder, my hand covering my mouth as I watched my little boys’ dreams come true.
I love you, baby.