The Little Boy in the Tree

There are events in our lives that change everything; from the way we experience every moment, the way we remember our past, to what we anticipate our future will be. The death of a child robs you of the future that you took for granted was your right to know. You held that baby thinking ahead to all the joys you would have: first days of school, birthdays, Christmas waiting for Santa, future weddings, and grandchildren to bounce on your knee. Happy events you envision for your child flow through your mind like a mighty river, and you bask in the knowledge that the pleasure that you will experience is a gift that life has already awarded you. On Oct. 20th, 2005, my world crashed down around me. I was inconsolable. I felt as though my heart would explode in my chest, and I knew I would never be the same. Despair and grief were the demons that chased me through so many nights and would render me unable to think any further than the next minute, for what seemed an eternity. I remember coming home and going through the airport in Beijing; not understanding the signs, and having no one there to help me; walking into a gift shop, unconsciously picking things up, not seeing what I was looking at, knocking over a statue and the shopkeeper running alongside of me screaming at me until I just handed him a fistful of money. I was immobilized in a place that didn’t understand what I had lost; that couldn’t understand what I had lost. I stood in line at the security checkpoint crying until a sweet middle-aged woman asked me what was wrong. She took me by the arm and led me through the lines until I got to my gate. I never knew her name, and she will never know what a gift from God she was to me on that day. At the airport back at home, the first face I saw was my Sarah, my anchor in the storm. A security guard led us into a side room where at least fifty of my friends waited to share this horror that was about to commence, and although I had been traveling for the last twenty four hours, I took in all the love that they shared with me that night. Sarah held my hand through it all. The funeral itself was something that Andrew would have hated: Several people playing pianos; a choir singing Andrew’s favorite hymns; a brass quartet playing; Marine guards; a twenty one-gun salute. Watching Andrew’s mother, Sally, touching the casket of her only son was like a knife in my heart. It is a picture that is forever burned into the memory of the worst day of my life. I wish I had never seen it. My letters are a glimpse into the first years of dealing with the dread and nightmare of every parent come to my life. To those who have lost precious children, I want you to know that you are not alone, that you will survive, as I have survived. You will find some peace in this emotional chaos. You will never forget, nor should you, but you will learn how to make it through yet another day, and then another. My heart aches for you, I live this with you, and I write this for you.