Exactly three weeks ago today – on June 28th, at 9:03 and 9:05 PM – our twin boys Jacob and Jeremy were born. Jacob, now just over three pounds, is doing exactly what he should be doing: lying in the special care ward of the hospital, getting bigger. (Yesterday he grew only 1 gram, but overall he’s doing great.)
Jeremy didn’t make it. We spent two wonderful hours with him, holding him and singing to him and hugging him, before he died in my arms at 11:05 PM. The doctor confirmed his death a few minutes later. We had him baptised; we took pictures; we heard him cry, ever so briefly, ever so softly. With us for minutes, then gone in minutes.
We made it by on auto-pilot that first week; my wife in extreme pain, but still up every three hours to pump milk for our surviving fighter. Somehow we organized Jeremy’s arrangements – his cremation, his funeral, his burial. In a flash, in a blur, in a split second we were at his funeral, then making smalltalk over egg salad sandwiches and beer.
One week-long marathon completed, the next began. We then spent the second week re-learning what it took to be at a newborn’s hospital bedside as often as you can be. Only this time, we had our first preemie baby to look after as well: our son Joshua, almost three years and worlds away from his time as a four-pound kicker in the same hospital ward. That second week also flew by; little chance to breathe, let alone grieve. Life continued.
But on Friday of that week – 5 days after Jeremy’s funeral, two days before my scheduled return to work – I was sitting on our couch, resting. We were enjoying a 25 minute respite, between the running around just completed and that which was to come, desperately trying to find some strength. We were both exhausted, both several weeks removed from our last truly restful night’s sleep. I felt seven steps outside of my own body, as if watching a poor image of myself on a movie screen. I was realizing that this feeling of emptiness, of despair, of…. such sadness wasn’t going away. It wasn’t getting better with time. It had moved in, and seemed to be a physical presence next to me, seated on the couch like an interloper who had nowhere else to go. Move over, buddy… Make room, ’cause I’m not goin’ anywhere.
Every few hours since Jeremy’s death — sometimes twice an hour, sometimes just a few times a day – I felt as if someone came up to me and pounded me in the gut. As if a horse was kicking me in the stomach, violently, suddenly. It would leave me, sometimes, literally gasping for breath – an actual physical pain. Like a sudden drop of a roller coaster, that keeps falling and falling until it reaches the bottom with a bone-jarring thud. I had made it through to that point, 12 days after Jeremy’s death, knowing that it would get better. Certain that each day would be, if nothing else, a little less worse than the one before it.
But that Friday, on that couch, I realized it wasn’t getting better. It wasn’t going away, not slowly, not at all. I wanted nothing more than to crawl into bed and hide, hide, hide away until the pain and the sadness disappeared.
I need to tell this story. I need to share that Jeremy meant something, that he was alive, that he existed.
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