When the unexpected happened and our 9 week old son passed away, Angel Eyes was there for me. They reached out to me the very next day. I was so numb at the time, but remember feeling that I had support and was not alone. Through the free couseling and family meetings I eventually could really go on with my life. We eventaully added two subsequent children to our family. As issues have come up over the years, Angel Eyes is still there to support me emotionally.
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The happiest day of my life was when my first son, Andrew was born. It was also my mother's birthday, and she thought this was wonderful present. I took maternity leave and had returned to work, when one day a friend came to me to tell me that Andrew had been taken to the hospital. Utter panic! She drove me to the hospital. We were taken to a little room, still not knowing all that was going on. Then the news was delivered that Andrew has passed away my world collapsed! How could my healthy baby boy die? Life was a blur and didn't make sense. The next day I received a call from Angel Eyes (at that time we were the Colorado SIDS Program). Just being able to talk to someone about it was amazing. She explained about SIDS to me, and invited me to attend a mom's meeting. It was just the support I needed. I attended mom's meetings and family sharing meetings, and met other families going through the same thing. I still have good friends who are in the club. This is not a club you want to join! To help with my grief and healing, I started to volunteer for events. Angel Eyes was also there to support me when I had my two subsequent children. Years later, I was invited to join the Board of Directors, of which I was a director, then secretary, treasurer, vice president and then president of the Board. This has been my way of giving back. I am still an active volunteer at events. Without Angel Eyes, I do not know where I would be today. Thank you, Angel Eyes.
Our experience with Angel Eyes began in 1995. We have been involved in various capacities with the organization since our daughter died. Their focus has always been on the families of lost babies, and they have served the community with education, counseling, and other important services with compassion and minimal administration costs.
The death of my first child was by far the hardest experience of my life. Nothing can prepare you for the shock, the grief, and lingering depression that follow such a tragic event. Through counseling and the amazing support of loving family and friends, I've been able to overcome an excruciating ordeal and begin to thrive again. I joined Angel Eyes because I believe in their mission, and since I've been on the Board, I've been impressed by the passion and dedication that our staff, volunteers, and fellow Board members bring to this organization. I'm proud to be a part of an organization that freely provides such a needed service to those who have experienced the heart break of child loss.
If you or someone you know has experienced the death of a child, I highly recommend getting involved with Angel Eyes, whether through taking advantage of their free bereavement counseling, or as wounds heal and you feel ready to help others through a similar challenge, by volunteering with the organization; you won't regret it!
This is why I work with Angel Eyes and what this organization means to me. A Facebook post on my sons 21st birthday.
As I have attended support group meetings for that past year or so for parents who have lost children to SIDS and other early childhood tragedies, two very interesting phenomenon (for lack of a better word) have come to my attention.
We have words like widow, widower and orphan, but there is no traditional word to represent a parent who loses a child. I find that fact very interesting as these other words are ones that can be traced back several hundred years into the history of the English language. And several hundred years ago when these other words were also commonly in use as they are today the death rate among children was alarming by today’s standards. In fact as late as the 19th century it was not uncommon for a couple to have as many as ten children in order to get two or three to survive in to adulthood. I don’t know if that makes us special or what. Funny don’t feel special.
Also it is not uncommon for these parents to loose their faith along with their child, if they ever had faith to begin with. They can become very resentful when people tell them things like, “Their child is in a better place.” or “We are not meant to understand God’s plan.” Or words to that effect. Now this is not always the case to be sure. There are many parents whose faith no doubt is a real pillar of strength for them during these very difficult times. I for one certainly respect them and others for their belief system, I just don’t count myself among them. And I also realize that these are just meant as words of comfort when people really don’t know how to console the inconsolable. Perhaps one day I will feel differently, I don’t really know. There is a quote I am very fond of. “Faith is something I have yet to be blessed with.”
As I sit here in front of my keyboard struggling to form my thoughts in to coherent words and sentences I am forced to ponder what has brought me to this point in my life. It sometimes seems difficult to recall the events 21 years ago as they will often fade in and out of my memory. At times they seem as incredibly crisp clear as the dawn on chilly winter morning after the snow. And other times they seem like a dream you just can’t remember. I can see myself and my ex-wife as we learned of the news, he was at the sitter at the time. I can see myself sitting with him at the hospital when they told me they had done all they could. I remember standing at the graveside not hearing anything or seeing anything that was going on around me. I was just fixated on the tiny little casket, how small it was. I thought of the person whose job is was to make it. “What a dreadful job to have”, I thought, “to build caskets for a baby.”
I am also thinking about this moment this past Friday as I was looking at my calendar and I was pondering all the tasks I had to accomplish this weekend. Finals for school, photos I have to take, mundane household tasks, when something I can’t quite explain came over me. I thought of my son Alex and had this feeling that his birthday was coming up soon. Then as quickly as the feeling came over me it was gone. This was peculiar for two reasons. In the past 21 years I have never taken the time to think about or mark the passing of Alexander’s Birthday. There was no particular reason for this, I just never did. Secondly I am just not the superstitious type. I don’t believe in ghosts, Bigfoot, or things of a supernatural nature. But I could not shake this feeling. So I did some digging in my phone and as it turns out his birthday was in fact the very next day, Saturday the 4th of May.
As my son would now be 21 I try to think how he would look as a man, what kind of person would he be? How tall would he be, and so on, but all I can see is a baby. I suppose that is the way it always is. I often will read the memoirs of soldiers who will recall the friends they lost in battle. As old men they will talk about their comrades, who in their minds will always be young men of 20 or 21 years old.
Since the feeling was so strong I decided to do something about it. I decided to buy a card and some sunflowers and spent some quiet time alone at the cemetery with my thoughts and reflect on the direction my life has taken over the past 21 years. Connor, Stephen and Stephen’s girlfriend Sara and I went out later together.
As I stood above his grave, I noticed how all the tiny headstones have grown up all around his, like wild flowers in a field. I again thought about all of people who are charged with dealing with all the different aspects the loss of children. Digging the tiny graves, carving little headstones. That is just how my mind works at times. You see in Littleton Cemetery they inter all the babies in one spot and they don’t charge a fee, or at least they did not charge us. Sometimes sitting here among all the little headstones I find great serenity and peace and other times all I can think of is all the grief, heartbreak, and shattered lives it represents. All I can see are all the little children who never had a chance grow up. I see the young parents who eyes I look into every time I go a group meeting. Absent eyes, eyes searching for an answer they may never find. Young parents whose lives made sense a few weeks ago and now seem hopelessly shattered. I feel like I am meant to help these people if I can.
The death of my son changed me in ways that I will never fully comprehend, but I can honestly say it was the watershed event in my life. I can say with absolute confidence that my life has taken a different path because of him. And I honestly believe I am a better person because of what I experienced. But I would not recommend you try it. Because I have also seen firsthand how it can fragment lives and destroy families. It seems to be an either or proposition.
Several months ago I was arguing politics with my father. He loves to argue. At one point he commented that his point was more valid because I had lived more of a sheltered life. I had not experienced the trials and tribulations that the previous generation had he contended. I did not find his argument persuasive, but I would agree that as we move along though history we are often cursed or blessed with not having to struggle with the hardships of the previous generation. However, I thought that was the idea.
But I would trade all of his life’s struggles, all of his bad days, any hard time he ever lived for just one more day with my son. I can say that because I know that I can never have that. I know it will never come true, but if I could, I would. I can’t change what happened to me, I can only try to make it have some kind of meaning in my life.
Christians can believe that it was God’s will and that is okay. Others can believe my son will be coming back in another life and that is okay too. People can believe whatever they want to help ease their pain or to try and help others who are suffering. As for me I stopped asking “why” a long time ago. I just console myself with that that the universe is just random. And it really gives no thought as to what is convent for you or me. Sometimes babies stop breathing and sometimes the little mechanism in their brains that tells them to start again is just not fully developed. There just is no why, or why me? It just is what it is. Sometimes life or death is just that simple. When momentously catastrophic things happen in our lives it is human nature to desire an explanation that equals the event, sometimes there just is not one. I have come to terms with that.
I don’t have all the answers to be sure, far from it. I only know what I know and what works for my life and what got me here. I do know that life beat me down very hard that day. Harder than it ever has since and harder than it ever will again. And I look at everything and everyone just a little differently because of it. I know that I was as sad as I will ever be, and the rest my life looks really really good by comparison. You just have to look at it life the right way. It is not something I would carve in a stone or put on a wall, it is just what works for me.
And perhaps that is my reason why. That is my journey. The gift my son gave to me. A gift I did not want, a gift I can’t return, a gift I would not wish on anyone else. That was Alexander’s gift to his father.