Daddy Heard Your Song Today

I watched daddy’s black car swing into the driveway, music blaring. It was your song playing on the radio. He waited it out, and though I couldn’t see through the tinted glass, I knew he was crying. He was crying over you Kimani.

How does one broken heart console another? Of all the things I have learned in the last five years, that one remains elusive. Instead I catch his sorrow and we cry together, standing outside in the rain, with the autumn wind flinging wet leaves against us.

If only we knew then in the hospital what we know now. If only we had pushed harder. If only we had insisted. If only we had not believed the nurse who said you were fine, when really you were seizing from the bacterial meningitis that was terrorizing your brain. If the antibiotics that came late that night had been administered 11 hours earlier, would you be a different little girl?

And what if I had stomped my foot down and never given in to letting you get that CV line in your groin? Would the hospital have really called Child Protective Services on me like they threatened to? Would one less brain insult have made a difference for you? Will I ever stop hating that doctor who pressured me into giving her permission to do it to you?

It was all life or death, honey. Every decision we made concerning you led to this life or no life for you.

If you could have seen your future, would you have consented to have your aorta resectioned? Did you visit with God while you were dead? Did he convince you that this life would be ok once they restarted the blood flow to your brain... bringing you back to life? Did he give you a choice in the matter?

I hope so Kimani. I would like to believe that you chose to stay with us, despite the life you would have here. Because that... that kind of feels like forgiveness, which is maybe what your parents need the most from you.