One year ago today, we sat in the hospital in Dallas, listening to machines beep and flash. Watching as you struggled to hold on. I don’t remember words but I remember the sounds of The End. I ached to hold you and yet I knew when I did, it would be one of the last times.
So many people were in that room when I finally said we were ready. Daddy and Bella next to me on a little couch we’d slept, dreamed, prayed and cried on for over two weeks. You were three weeks old that day and you were going Home.
I watched as each button was pushed, off and off again. Dials down. Tubes out. The oxygen for last. I sobbed to the nurse in terror about not taking the pain medication away from you, she assured me they wouldn’t.
“He won’t feel a thing.”
Finally freed of all the tubes and wires that had made holding you turn into a ballet act, I lifted you up and held you to me. That was all I ever wanted. Just to hold you close and kiss your perfect little head and cheeks. You never moved, just breathed in and out. Slower and slower. I whispered how I loved you, how sorry I was, how we would never, ever forget you.
Your Daddy leaned in to kiss you, tears running down our faces and onto your skin. You’d tried so hard to hold on, you’d been through so much.
Then you were gone. The doctor listened, and nodded, starting to walk away and then turning around as I screamed up at heaven, “All I wanted was to take my baby home!” Then I covered you in a blanket and rocked you back and forth on me.
My darling rainbow baby. The one that was supposed to make everything right again. And you were dead. I waited for God to undo it, to shock everyone into putting life back into the little body that was turning purplish and gray. Any minute. I waited as my family held you. As you were bathed. As I handed you back to the nurse and thought my heart would stop beating.
Any moment God. So many people waiting for this miracle.
I waited as we left. When the hospital called to follow up. When they let me know your little body was ready to be picked up by the funeral director. The same one as your brothers had – in town just that day.
I waited for days for the miracle that didn’t happen. I waited nine months for you. And I’m waiting for eternity – for all of us there together like it should have been.
I love you so much, I’ll miss you forever,
Mama
Diana Stone is the Editor-in-Chief and owner of Still Standing Magazine, as well as a loss mom to three boys, twins born in 2012 and another son in 2013. She also has two (living) daughters. Currently, Diana teachers first grade for a Reggio-Emilia inspired school and is pursuing a Master of Arts in Clinical Mental Health Counseling.
Her journey with writing online started after the birth of her first daughter in 2009. You can read Diana’s work on World Vision, The Huffington Post, The New York Times, Christianity Today, Babble, Liberating Working Moms, Simple Homeschool, Mom.me, She Reads Truth, Still Standing Magazine, Yahoo, Military Family, Attachment Parenting International, and her own site Diana Wrote.
She’s spoken at the Influence Conference, on several podcasts like Happy, Healthy You and The Morning (episode 51), and a live panel with HuffPo. She’s also traveled alongside World Vision USA to both Zimbabwe and Ecuador to learn about maternal and infant mortality rates in 2015 and to help launch their Chosen program in 2019.
Her passion is advocating for women’s physical and mental health rights during and after the loss of a child at any stage. Contact her at editorial@stillstandingmag.com
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