Still Missing
The porch light is left on all night every night.
There are seven Christmas gifts that have not been opened.
His clothes are laundered, folded and tucked away neatly in a Rubbermaid container in the attic.
His hospital beanie cap sits on my bureau.
His portrait - dated by seven and a half years hands with his siblings which were all taken within a few months of today.
He is here. But he is still missing.
I have spent seven and a half years figuring out what happened to my son and then what I would do to be able to live with it. I am still figuring out.
His body lays 8 feet or 9 feet under a small black marble slab with his name on it. The 32 plus x-rays taken in a day of his life probably are much more similar to him now than the photo sitting on my nightstand. Certainly the sternum wires are in tact.
I am drawn to the cold, the wind, the snow. The sudden hush that blankest the bustling suburbia invites me to take a discreet and peaceful journey. I want to go back. Back to court. Back to the hospital. Back to the nurses and doctors. Back to where he died. There is an eternal connection for me there. I want them to improve. I want that place to be thee place to go for children's heart care. What a wonderful legacy that would be to the memory of the children who died there as a result of negligence, disregard, lack of safety, and an hospital overrun by its own hidden curriculum.
When someone dies tragically in a public place, the family quite often invests time and energy to beautify the spot. People who lose loved ones to medical errors, adverse events, whatever you want to call them this year - preventable - wish to do the same. It's natural.
Grief is circular. It's like action research. For every time, I go through denial and detachment and eventually hit despair and hopelessness which will lead to anger and a desire for justice. But my action research is beginning to reveal for each time I loop through anger, I am more capable of sitting with the thoughts of the provider. I become increasingly interested in understanding the roadblocks that the providers faced to the proper care that my son should have received. I start fighting for lower med-mal rates for docs who have no claims filed against them. Calls or emails to providers are sent. A desire to allow and redirect the angry beast of grief in another injured patient/family member. I wish to find remedies that are not harmful. Compassion can grow from anger.
My son is still missing. I know ethereally where he is. My mortal heart struggles. So, I keep the light on. Even though he will never walk through his front door, from heaven and through the winter storm, maybe he can see the light that I keep on for him all night, every night.
There are seven Christmas gifts that have not been opened.
His clothes are laundered, folded and tucked away neatly in a Rubbermaid container in the attic.
His hospital beanie cap sits on my bureau.
His portrait - dated by seven and a half years hands with his siblings which were all taken within a few months of today.
He is here. But he is still missing.
I have spent seven and a half years figuring out what happened to my son and then what I would do to be able to live with it. I am still figuring out.
His body lays 8 feet or 9 feet under a small black marble slab with his name on it. The 32 plus x-rays taken in a day of his life probably are much more similar to him now than the photo sitting on my nightstand. Certainly the sternum wires are in tact.
I am drawn to the cold, the wind, the snow. The sudden hush that blankest the bustling suburbia invites me to take a discreet and peaceful journey. I want to go back. Back to court. Back to the hospital. Back to the nurses and doctors. Back to where he died. There is an eternal connection for me there. I want them to improve. I want that place to be thee place to go for children's heart care. What a wonderful legacy that would be to the memory of the children who died there as a result of negligence, disregard, lack of safety, and an hospital overrun by its own hidden curriculum.
When someone dies tragically in a public place, the family quite often invests time and energy to beautify the spot. People who lose loved ones to medical errors, adverse events, whatever you want to call them this year - preventable - wish to do the same. It's natural.
Grief is circular. It's like action research. For every time, I go through denial and detachment and eventually hit despair and hopelessness which will lead to anger and a desire for justice. But my action research is beginning to reveal for each time I loop through anger, I am more capable of sitting with the thoughts of the provider. I become increasingly interested in understanding the roadblocks that the providers faced to the proper care that my son should have received. I start fighting for lower med-mal rates for docs who have no claims filed against them. Calls or emails to providers are sent. A desire to allow and redirect the angry beast of grief in another injured patient/family member. I wish to find remedies that are not harmful. Compassion can grow from anger.
My son is still missing. I know ethereally where he is. My mortal heart struggles. So, I keep the light on. Even though he will never walk through his front door, from heaven and through the winter storm, maybe he can see the light that I keep on for him all night, every night.
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