Memories More Than Gold

                        "Memories More Than Gold"
              A Mother’s story of survival after the death of a child.

    I clutched my chest in terror, feeling my heart explode as if being ripped by a thousand  thrust of a jagged dagger. Hearing the devastating  words like a sonic boom inside  my head, shattering my ear drums, and leaving me in total silence.  I shivered, numbed by an icy chill, my blood draining cold,  pooling in the pit of my stomach  from the gapping  hole where my  heart was being torn from my body. My eyes blurred and my lungs struggled desperately for oxygen but only gasping raspy noises would croak from my throat when I tried to speak. I grabbed for the porch rail trying to catch myself as my shaky  legs buckled. I crumpled to the ground, time stood still, and the earth stopped spinning on its axis as it swallowed me into a deep, silent, black abyss. It was Monday, 4:22 pm , November 15, 2004.
      Less than fifteen minutes ago I had been relaxing  in my cosy living room, enjoying the crisp clear  voices of “The Eagles” Hell Freezes Over album on surround sound.  I had gone to a friends house earlier that morning  and spent  an hour or so visiting and was back home by 1:00pm. After that I spend a couple of hours tidying up the house and  getting my things ready for work that night. I was admiring my sparkling clean house, and decided to light a few candles as I did a little rearranging of some pictures and other adornments accenting the American Indian decor of my little farmhouse.
    Listening to the music, basking in the glow of flickering candle  light and giving in to the calming aroma of  orange vanilla I had just started to dose into sleep.  I was suddenly awakened by the dogs barking outside. Not the normal yap of seeing another dog, or someone walking down by the road, but the deep warning barks of two Pit Bull dogs saying “there is someone in my yard and I don’t know them!!!”  I looked out the window and seen two police cars and a neighbor's van pulling in my driveway.  I guess it is just a built in radar of some kind or something, but a mother just knows what she is about to hear in a case like this, my heart started pounding and I didn’t want to open the door, I wanted to run to the bedroom, cover up my head and hide so I couldn’t hear it.
      I heard the first knock on the door, I hesitated for a minute almost deciding not to answer it, and it came again louder. I walked to the door, opened it slowly and walked out on the porch , seeing the somber faces of two police officers and my neighbor from down the road. I felt my  heart pounding harder, and then a weak feeling all over. I know the officer could see all the color draining from my face as he reached to take my hand, and my neighbor, with tears streaming down her face, stood beside me holding my other hand.
    I vaguely remember the telephone ringing and the other officer, a female, asking me where my phone was and then going in to answer it for me. The officer holding my hand said, “Mrs Erickson?”  I must have answered him “yes”, and he proceeded to tell me of a bad automobile crash that happened earlier that day and my son being pronounced dead at the scene of the accident at 1:45 pm.  The telephone rang several more times, and I could hear my neighbor answering people asking questions about what they had heard on the scanner, or from someone that had been at the wreck location. My son being an athlete during his school days, and living in a very small town was well known by many, and news travels fast, especially bad news.  I remember very little of the next few days ... a blur of what seemed like hundreds of people in and out of my house, my closest friends and family staying with me night and day, the telephone ringing off the hook, and funeral arrangements.
    It has been almost three years now since that day, and the death of my only child has taken quite a toll on my life. I am not a coward, nor someone that doesn't finish something once it is started. I am just tired. I am not a whiner or a crier, I am a very private person, most of my emotions I deal with myself, or talk to a very close friend. I have good coping skills, and the ability to shake myself off, and move forward in most situations. Both my parents, my only sibling, and my only child are deceased.. my entire immediate family.. to which I was very close. I just do not have the will to fight that I used to. I have always prided myself in being a strong person. I stood up for what I believed in, and I gave one hundred percent. I was level headed, set goals, and worked hard to achieve them. I have had a steady job since I was sixteen years old. For the past two years, seven months and twenty six days I have struggled daily, and sometimes hourly to maintain and just live my life. I try to look at things from the prospective of the glass being half full instead of half empty, but these days I often feel the emptiness.
    From the time my son Mikale was born he was the center of my world. I rocked him to sleep at night, played cars and trucks with him, put band-aids on his knees, and loved him with all my heart. We did homework together when I was in nursing school, and he had just started grade school. I went to every soccer, basketball, football, and baseball game he had. I set the very best example I knew to teach him how to be honest, truthful, have good morals and ethics, and to stand up for what he believed was right. I reprimanded him when he disobeyed, I set curfews, and I was interested and aware of where he went and who he hung out with.
    For three and one half years I was his teacher as he worked on a home school program to receive his high school diploma early. I took a job working 16 hour shifts on Saturday and Sunday so I was off Monday through Friday to monitor his schooling. We went to museums, the state capital, and social events with other home school groups. On the weekends his dad took him hunting, fishing, and worked with him to fix up an old truck for his first vehicle. When he did get his drivers license, and drove out of the driveway for the first time by himself I cried, and couldn't relax until he drove back in.
    We laughed and cried together, and had our share of disagreements and struggles that go along with parent-child relationships during teen age years. I talked to him about girls, the importance of treating women with love and respect, and to be able to expect this same love and respect in return. I taught him about God, and tried to set a good example in our home with church, bible study, and prayer.
    One day I looked up and saw a young man, head and shoulders taller than me, where there used to be this little boy that I had pushed for hours on the swing, taught to ride a bicycle, and tucked into bed at night. His face still so familiar to me.. his kind blue eyes, big bright smile, and that head full red hair. Mikale was a gentle soft spoken person. He had this deep hardy chuckle of a laugh, and was very free with his big hugs.. and you knew you had been hugged when he let go! He loved me, was respectful to me, and I was very proud of my son.
    I saw the tears rolling down his cheeks as each of his daughters were born, and he looked into their eyes for the first time when they were just minutes old. I watched him carry those tiny babies in his great big hands, learn to change their diapers, feed them, and deal with the joys, demands and responsibilities of fatherhood.  Then, in the blink of an eye, I was holding back my tears, and wiping them from the faces of these 2 little girls. ,  holding their  hands as they looked at their Daddy in his casket, touched his face and kissed him for the last time. On November 15, 2004 at 1:45 pm the center of my world crashed and disappeared forever.
    As a Registered Nurse for over 20 years , I know first hand that there are things much worse than death. I am thankful that my son was killed on impact, and was not left brain damaged beyond recovery, paralyzed for life, or lingering for days hooked to machines that would in the end, require me to make the decision about his life. My heart goes out to the mothers that have had to deal with those types of situations regarding their children. Counting my blessings is how I survive and continue to function and live with the loss of my child. I gave birth to a healthy baby, watched an energetic, rowdy little boy grow into a curious, intelligent teen ager, and later become a gentle, loving man and devoted father. I had my child for 25 wonderful years. There are women that desperately want children that can't have their own, and mothers that never see their babies leave the hospital, or only have their children for a few years, watching them die little by little with cancers and other equally devastating diseases. I do not know how these women survive, they must be some of the strongest people on earth. The death of your child, no matter how it comes about, is the worst fear, and most horrible ache of a mother's heart. Learning to live again afterwards is equally as difficult. You think that you will never to able to smile or laugh again, or watch someone else hold and hug their child. I especially hated driving by the school when the kids were outside.. I would go around on out of the way roads to keep from driving by a school full of kids.
    One day I was in a hurry, not thinking too clearly again as usual for those days, and found myself driving by the school around lunch time. Waiting at the stop sign, I glanced across the play ground and saw a group of boys playing basketball, and right in the middle there was this little red head dribbling for all he was worth and coming in for a perfect 2 point layup. My heart pretty much froze, and the tears started coming.. but more than the tears was the flood of memories that washed into my brain like a giant title wave. Happy memories, joyful memories, days and years of wonderful blessed, thank you God memories!!
    Driving on a bit later I noticed I was smiling, even laughing a little to myself thinking about the day Mikale swooshed a 3 pointer from the center line, the last 2 seconds of the game, bringing his team in first place, and seeing his face as he looked up at me in the bleachers.. grinning, while his coach, and the whole team rallied around him. I thought about the hollowed out egg shell that his girl friend had for homemaking class that represented your baby for lessons in parenting and child care. She cut up some red yarn and pasted it on the top of the egg for hair and drew blue eyes and a big smile on it. We had to go out and get a strawberry carton for a car seat so little "Blane Mikale" would be safe. I had to laugh out loud, remembering them caring that egg around for a week trying keep it from getting cracked.
    In the days following, my mind couldn't be still for all the memories that were racing around in my head. I started writing them down, savoring each one, and remembering every little detail. It was almost like finding the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, or winning the lottery the day after you lost your job. With each memory I rekindled I felt a little piece of my shattered heart come back from the deep abyss, and the dark shadows giving way to a new light and peace in my soul. I drove by the school again several times, hoping to catch a glimpse of that little red headed boy again, and I did, a couple of times, and he even looked up once and waved at me, like he knew it was him I was driving there to see. Now days when I see a group of kids somewhere I can smile and feel happy , or if I happen to see some mother at the grocery store carring a cute little red headed baby it brings the the warmest joy to my heart. Memories are a far cry from actually being able to hold, hug or hear your child's voice, but they are what I have left of my son, and they will be with with me the rest of my life.
    The memories of my son's life are the most precious and important things I own. My grand daughters will not have these memories of their own, Siara was 7 and Savana was 5 when he died. He will not be at their ball games or school functions, he will not be there to watch them graduate, or walk them down to get married, anywhere else in between or ever. What they will have is other people's memories, and a few pictures of the man they called "Daddy". He was not a perfect person, as none of us are, and I am not trying to make him some kind of saint in death, but I hope I can capture some of those memories and preserve them in my writing for his daughters. I still think about that little red headed boy on the school play ground that day, and his nameless face is at the top of my prayer list. I pray to God to always keep him safe, let him grow up happy, to give his mother many many years with him, lots of love, heart felt joy, and a life time of memories.