in a dream
today i went to a funeral for a baby.
for six months he was perfectly healthy. at one point barb asked me how old most babies are when you can put them in a highchair because daniel still couldn't hold his head up. a few weeks later she stopped coming to work.
eventually we all found out that he had a degenerative disease that prevented his body from absorbing sugar. there's nothing that can be done for it. i'm completely in awe of how incredibly strong barb was through the whole thing. she was at the hospital every day with him, sleeping in a chair beside his crib. in fact, she was so optimistic about the entire thing that i didn't fully realize the severity of the situation until she told me one evening that he was completely blind and deaf and rhymed off the list of sedatives that he was recieving via i.v.
he died in the hospital on wednesday. seven months old.
this afternoon at the reception she said she was feeling surprisingly relaxed because the fact that he's no longer in pain is a tremendous comfort. she said that she feels like she's floating in a dream and that everything will be ok.
it's freezing cold today...but at least the sun is shining.
for six months he was perfectly healthy. at one point barb asked me how old most babies are when you can put them in a highchair because daniel still couldn't hold his head up. a few weeks later she stopped coming to work.
eventually we all found out that he had a degenerative disease that prevented his body from absorbing sugar. there's nothing that can be done for it. i'm completely in awe of how incredibly strong barb was through the whole thing. she was at the hospital every day with him, sleeping in a chair beside his crib. in fact, she was so optimistic about the entire thing that i didn't fully realize the severity of the situation until she told me one evening that he was completely blind and deaf and rhymed off the list of sedatives that he was recieving via i.v.
he died in the hospital on wednesday. seven months old.
this afternoon at the reception she said she was feeling surprisingly relaxed because the fact that he's no longer in pain is a tremendous comfort. she said that she feels like she's floating in a dream and that everything will be ok.
it's freezing cold today...but at least the sun is shining.
posted by diadima at 1:25 PM
6 Comments:
those stories are always sad. i remember as a kid, we'd take walks through the cemetery up the street where my Opa is buried, and one of my mom's sisters who died at 4 months, and we'd look at the childrens section sometimes. It never seemed fair, but that's good that the mom has that comfort approach to it.
I don't know that you could make me walk, eat or bathe if i lost my baby and had to watch the poor thing die over any period of time.
I'm glad you were able to be there for her and she was able to see the positive side, that her baby was no longer in pain.
i suddenly feel sick...
it sounds like barb had a long time to accept the inevitable and to prepare herself for what would happen. i can't even imagine how she's dealing with it though.
the thing is that she didn't have a long time. he was perfectly healthy for six months. this disease presented itself and progressed in less than five weeks.
i think that a part of why she was so calm is that she's still so shocked by it all.
My guess is she'll deal with it in stages. Some days she'll be okay, and others she'll be grief-stricken.
One of the hardest things, to me, would be to disassemble the nursery and put the baby's things away.
Then again, she might want to say goodbye.
But I would be with her as much as possible; being alone would probably be unbearable at this point.
I'm sending healing thoughts her way.
regina????
how i love it there. it's been a while since my last quattro stagioni...how unfortunate.
at least it made you smile...
:)
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