Sudden Infant Death Syndrome

Presently, I am looking back to years lost in my life. Chunks of time that I can not remember, some wishing I could forget. I was a reactive person, meaning not thinking about anything before I had time to make a rational, thought out plan. This on more than one occasion has landed me places most people see on television and confusion sets in. I've seen the dirtiest intentions of people who claimed to be a close friend. The wheels turning in the mind of a manipulator trying for another big score while standing side by side pretending to give a fuck about someone while leading them into a negative situation. Only pretending to console the hurt while pulling the strings in the background to benefit from the trap they set for you to walk into initially. The conniving slick plan of a person who has been a con artist simply waiting for your demise. Circling like a starved desert vulture, waiting for the right time to pounce on a carcass that has been picked over by bigger, stronger creatures. Creatures that have just taken the good parts and left this shell laying there with no regard to the respect that once beating heart deserved. A quick dive towards the dirt, gliding to the nearest spot with easy access to feast and flee when satisfied.

As I saw it, you had a predator and those who were the prey. In my later teenage years, I chose to not be the one who was preyed upon any longer. I wanted to be the hunter. I wanted to be the one who engaged in the chase. Watching the faces of those who once were the tormentors become the target of all the build up anger and disdain I accumulated with each episode of pain induced right of passage. Their anticipation for the day my wingspan cast a shadow over their giant egos lurking with every echoed sound of the unknown was mesmerizing. Finally, the sum of all their misgivings and mischief had landed in their lap and my name wasn't Santa Clause. I now controlled what I had let control me for so long.

I suffered so much with the words of my foes. Their words set on replay through the very soul of me. It played everything that passed through the gossip of neighborhood kids. Insults that burned into an imaginary Rolodex, cataloging the who, what, when, where and why of anything that resembled an unfavorable remark. The one that stuck out to me the most was hearing "baby killer." Words that were never more untrue but sent chills down my spine triggering every ounce of crazy I could muster in my broken spirit.

How could anyone say this about me? I didn't even know this girl.

The source being rumors that when my son died, there was blood. Lots of blood. The walls, bed, even ceiling covered in the blood of an innocent baby. Like what happened was the m.o. of a deranged serial murderer they once saw in a reel scream movie. This wasn't a fucking movie. This was real life. My life, my new reality.

I had no understanding of how my son passed away. I just knew he was no longer there when I went to his bassinet. I knew all those days of washing his tiny clothes in special soap didn't matter. I knew all those bottles I boiled burned my fingers to make sure were sterile for him were no longer going to nourish a growing kid. They would be thrown away like leftover delivered Chinese food. I was a kid, I was in shock trying to piece together the last night my son would sleep nestled on my elbow as I patted his Luvs covered butt back to dream.

It was a Saturday morning. As usual, my mother who apparently was unaware sleeping in was not against the law, was obsessing over cleaning. Her weekend routine since I could yell "Poof" over storm drains. She systematically would accomplish each room to her standard in tornado fashion. Circling each piece of furniture with some store bought formula promising to leave no residue and had some form of citrus smell it left behind. Picking up anything that had no place in the place it was already. Moving it from room to room only to go back and move it once again to the place it should have been. I know this well because I seem to have inherited this genius method of feminine self-mutilation. So much so, my boyfriend has called me Nunu on more than one occasion. (Apparently, Nunu is some sort of character that is a vacuum on a kid show?) Funny how some things just get passed on without even realizing it until that Ah-ha of "Shit. I am turning into my mother" moment. I'm sure if more kids are bestowed upon me I will totally use her line of how the health department would shut her down because my room looked like the city dump. If the city dump were a spoiled little girls room lined with Barbies and every other thing a kid could want.

This Saturday would, however, change everything. Would turn everything I ever knew to be true into the beginning of the most chaos I would ever see. My little family was in my cozy black and white tiger-themed room. Complete with its own life-sized white tiger perched on the horizon facing the muted winter sun. All asleep from the joys and challenges of a newborn baby who like clockwork challenges the slumber of anyone in earshot routinely. My mother needed to make a phone call, and as any mother knows, you can always find the handset in a teenage girls room. She looked for the state of the 90s "Zack Morris" sized phone and couldn't locate it. So, like a woman does, she pressed the page button like she would ask directions of an unknown destination and waited for high pitched locating feature. Not downstairs; it could only be one place. I wake up to one of the most annoying sounds only to replace those with blood-curdling screams that shook the world that day. I am not sure of what I said or if it were even words. Between the screaming wails of a terrified teenager, my mother sprang into this tiger mom. She swooped in, calling off directions to tell me what needed to be done. I was paralyzed by the fear, looking down my son, my son. He was not breathing. He was next to me, limp and getting cold to the touch. His mouth was open, inside his lips and tongue wet from saliva and this red mix of fluid trickling from his tiny button nose. It soaked his collar of the boxer brief gray onsie. It was seeping from his ears leaving the pillow stained pink as it matted my hair. What was happening? What the fuck, this can't be real. I'm praying to God "please God give him back," pleading with God to heal him. To help me any way he could, he was the Almighty God. He had to be able to bring him back. 8:30 a.m. the phone my mom searched for, now a necessity to get help, was in my hands. I do not remember pressing the raised buttons that would dispatch life-saving squads of medically trained teams of people who later would become obstacles in my grief. I don't know how that dispatcher on the other end managed to send paramedics to my location. I know my muffled responses were not making sense because I don't know if I ever managed to speak full words. My broken soul must have kicked in the autopilot to relay a dire need for rescue. It seemed like time had warped in some sick loop. Minutes were light years and the world had stopped. Now, 8:33 a.m. It was surreal, I felt like my heart had been stolen from me leaving this gaping hole. Hollow and lifeless, my son was pulled from my arms by a man I did not know. His dark blue uniform was glowing as he cradled my boy in his gifted powerfully soft arms. Instincts of this man were in his emergency training. A father of his own kids, with no hesitation, began trying to resuscitate this tiny human as he sprinted through unfamiliar space. He was graceful, yet so forceful in his efforts to breathe life back into Baby Joey. Before I could even think to follow him, he was at the ambulance, instruments of his craft in use and determination and tears in his now somber face. I remember looking for shoes. I remember my mother managing to get shoes on me and calling my father. My father was working that day across the tunnel on the other side of town. I never spoke to him until he made it to the hospital. I was told to go to the front seat of the ambulance. That driver was on a mission to get him to a place to get him help. I don't remember the ride, only them telling me I could go with my son. The father had to find a way to get there. Later, I was told the fire truck that had been dispached couldn't handle seeing the dad not being able to be there for him, for me even. These grown men who face death every day, chasing fires and every other life changing emergency daily, were all gathering at the hospital. They put his father on the fire truck to escort him to us. That day, all these people were emotionally involved. Their wet cheeks and sympathetic faces lined the room my son and I were in. My son was pronounced dead and I couldn't breathe. My heart was jumping towards my rib cage. Seemed as if it wanted to give my heartbeat to him because I would gladly have taken the place. He was now on his journey to heaven, as mine lead me to my own personal hell. I remember the E.R. doctor approaching me. I knew his words were not what I prayed for, I knew my son was gone. He stated that they had "worked on him, they tried to revive him. They had him breathing and heart beating but there was no longer brain activity." Legs. Weak. I have the uncomfortable feeling of nausea. I feel my dad holding me up, I am holding my mother and there it was, "Amanda, we removed the machines. I'm sorry. He's dead." I feel my arms struggling, my mother now on the floor. She's hysterical, Kim my cousin is trying to grab her as my father pushes me toward the bed as he feels me becoming weak. Digesting the words "he's dead" but they won't process. I can not comprehend I will not be taking him home. I would be leaving without him. My mother was a mess, my heart heavy watching this pain I placed in all of our lives. Inconsolable, my mother unaware of her reactions, reflexes now controlling her as my uncle tried to get her to her feet. He suffered a kick in the head as she was trying to regain control. Wouldn't help, now my mother had been admitted. Medically sedated and now sleeping, I demanded to see him.

Obliged by the staff with stern instruction and told of the state of his body. "Should I even have to ask or be concerned of this?" No, but this was now my reality. He had been cut from his onsies and the cutest grey onsie styled like men's boxer briefs. Like the Calvin Klein ad campaign featuring Mark Walburg in nothing but a pair of white boxer briefs that made many puberty stricken hormonal teenage girls drool. He was cold, tubes and tape everywhere. He looked like an angel still, his cheeks plump and pink. This look of peace overshadowed any signs of fear or pain he may have felt during his process of dying. A little bruising on his legs from being handled firmly in efforts to bring his soul back to his body. Nurses swaddled him like I had since the day he made his mark on this world. I opened the receiving blanket, counted toes and fingers. I held his hand as I spoke softly into his ear. I'll keep what I told him between him and I, but what would you say to your child given the chance before he was called home? I'm sure my words were mere variations of any mother's last words to her child. I was not allowed to be alone with him and grieve in private. All the world was there and still those moments I held him were ours. He and I and no one else mattered. Firemen and paramedics were crying, the faces of grown adults who could never understand how I felt. They witnessed the final moments of a bond broken and I pray they never harbored guilt. They did everything possible and I hope the never lost sleep like I had replaying that cold November day.

Holding my son singing our silly songs. I noticed one single tear fall from his resting eyes. That moment I felt this incredible comfort, a sense of peace I had never experienced. I believe in paranormal activity with conviction. I locked eyes with my father, "Dad," he looked at me. "Dad, Aunt Sissy has him." All the confused faces just lost trying to understand why I now sound like I had completely lost it. "Aunt Sissy got his hands, Dad, you see it." To us that one tear was a sign from him, he was letting us know he was safe. He had made it to heaven and our family was waiting to welcome him home. In my family, my aunt loved babies. She loved to hear the sound of their cry. I never understood this but I too was put through this weird induction into her heart. She would hold the newborn baby, but she had to hear what they sounded like crying. Never harshly, she would tap the hands long enough to piss off any sleeping newborn. Once she heard their distinct vocal capacity she would soothe them and comfort them. My son would go through this right of passage even in death. Ultimately and intentionally making me feel he was safe. Not that he no longer needed me but safe since I was not able to go to heaven with him.

It was time. I had to hand him over to the staff to go to the morgue. In the morning he would be transported to the medical examiner's office. He would have to stay here alone and face all these things I would he too scared to do. He would do what I couldn't bear to think of when he was only 33 days old. He was my hero. He was gone but I still had to make him proud. If you know me, then you know I disappointed a lot of people later on. Especially his memory.

I couldn't hand him over. I wanted to run away with him. I also knew this was impossible. My dad with the biggest tears I had ever seen, asks me to give Baby Joey to him. My dad takes him and buried his face in the tiny collar bone as he spoke to him in a conversation I knew would kill me even more. He walked him where we had to say goodbye. Heavy hearts and a lot of empty arms walked away that day as hard as it was to do. The really important things that were imperative to complete had to be done. We had to plan the final services for a life taken so soon. We had to decide on things that should never be thought of when the store bought stick tells you that you are expecting. You dream of sandboxes and planning for his future. Not his casket and his funeral.

The day they closed that casket, I became closed off. I turned cold and began to take out my revenge on everything that ever caused me pain. I turned away from the world that turned it's back on me. However, I was going to take what I was owed. The path of destruction was paved in booze and bad decisions.

My Aunt Georgia "Sissy" Howard

This is the woman who gave me peace in a world I no longer understood. She, even in death, could soothe me after if felt like life had blistered my hands. This world made me cry but she gave me the peace I needed. Even if only for a little while.