• Little Lion

Little Lion

Our middle child; our son, Aidan, died in our arms three days after birth. His brain had not developed sufficiently and he was unable to breathe on his own. Yet, somehow he gave us the gift of a final night together in a small room outside of the NICU, even after he was taken off the ventilator.

At his funeral, I talked about his heart, which kept him going longer than expected in spite of his small brain. He was a lion-hearted fighter; we chose an image of a lion for his headstone.

Shortly after that, Latoya and I were connected with a grief support group specifically for parents who had lost a pregnancy or an infant. We went for several weeks, sharing our story as well as the sadness of other parents. One father talked about coping by almost pointlessly organizing things. I really identified with that; I think sometimes focusing on a small thing we can manipulate gives us a brief escape from that which we cannot control.

I guess my own way of creating some order amid pain was “growth by reduction.” Over time, I sold almost all of the larger-than-average music collection that I’d begun in the late 1980s. Page by page, I got rid of most of the contents of 10 or 12 binders of creative writing I’d compiled since my late teens.

Music and writing had certainly helped me cope many times, but I realized that they also could be very insular pursuits. I’ve always tended toward introversion, and the time after Aidan’sdeath really illuminated the value of interdependence.

I already felt the weight of sadness from the loss of Aidan; I did not want the weight of the past or of a once-delightfully obsessive music collection. I wanted to be freer, more present, especially for my wife and daughter (and, now, for another daughter). Losing Aidan meant I lost a bit of myself, as did Latoya. In coping, I also started to shed things that sometimes put me on a man-made island.

Once we had made at least somewhat of a dent in the medical bills, I decided that the rest of the money from selling music should go to helping others. So, as many parents do, Latoya and I started a small non-profit that we ultimately named Aidan’s Angels, Inc. Our mission is to support babies and families.

On what would have been Aidan’s 3^rd birthday last December, we brought baskets of useful infant items, as well as children’s books, meal vouchers, and gas cards, to families with babies at the Duke Children’s Medical Center NICU where Aidan had been treated.

Three years earlier, a doctor at Duke had emphatically said that Aidan would always be with us. I keep the image of the little lion everywhere I go.

Out of that painful, beautiful, slow-motion night came a lasting lesson from my son, which is that heart (love, interconnectedness) can keep us going when a logical, reasoning brain is insufficient.

Source: bandbacktogether.com