Life of Brian

2004

Everyone has a moment in their lives they will never forget.  A moment they cannot forget.  For some, these moments are happy moments.  For others maybe these memories are filled with excitement.  Unfortunately for others, these moments are traumatic.  These memories I'm referring to etch scars into your brain, and your heart.  Scars never leave you, even the hidden ones can bring it all back as if it's happening in the present.  Two thousand and four was filled with two kinds of these moments.  

Sarah and I had a little girl soon to be three years old.  She was happy and healthy as could be.  We both loved her with all of our hearts, and she brought us unknown happiness every single day.  In November of 04, our first daughter would get a sister.  Brianna was born on a quiet afternoon.  She was a large baby.  I remember her weight was over the eight-pound mark.  When the nurses brought her out of the delivery room and placed her in the plastic bed tub so that she could be weighed and monitored, her chunky sumo wrestler leg actually hung out over the side of this unit.  All the other babies in those plastic bed tubs easily fit inside them.  Not Brianna.  She was calm as could be.  Amongst the crying from all the other newborns, Brianna was silent, as if she knew she could take any one of those other kids if the situation required.  Maybe her calmness simply runs in our family veins.  Kaylie was the same way.  Unlike Kaylie's stunning blue eyes, Brianna had big beautiful brown eyes.  Luckily, she was also healthy as could be.  Sarah and I were now the proud parents to two baby girls.  We could not have been more blessed.  

Not long into that year, after we had celebrated bringing a life into this world, sadly, our neighbor would have to say goodbye to the life she had just recently introduced to the world.  The day of this occurrence is one I will never forget.  Early one morning, Sarah and I were startled awake by the sound of screaming.  This screaming was like no other I had ever heard in my entire life.  I quickly got dressed.  When I ran outside, our neighbor was in the middle of the street.  She was filled with so much panic and fear that she looked as if she wasn't even in her own body.  Across the street kneeled a man over a little infant child.  It was our neighbor's child.  This man was carrying out CPR.  I walked over to the mother, gave her a hug, told her that she needed to take deep breaths and attempted to get her out of the middle of the street.  I had already gone up to the man doing CPR and touched the baby's foot.  It felt warm to the touch and the baby appeared to be simply sleeping.  I tried consoling our neighbor, telling her that everything that could be done for her child, was being done.  I did not want to tell her everything was going to be alright because honestly, I did not know this.  The fire department showed up, then the ambulance.  One of the firefighters was a female.  She had a hard time dealing with the scene being a mother herself.  There was no consoling my neighbor, I think in her heart she already knew.  They both loaded into the back of the ambulance and disappeared down the street, in route to the hospital.  The man giving CPR was shaking.  He was some form of a Dr. if I recall and he too, knew what the outcome was.  Her little child was gone, off to heaven after only six weeks on this planet.  Returning to my apartment, I could not really believe what I had just experienced.  We did not know for sure at that time that her child had passed.  Later we would discover that her little child had died from SIDS.  I remember thinking how lucky we were, staring at our two little girls.  Also, how quickly life can turn into misery.  I hear people say all the time to cherish every moment.  This day stamped that mantra into my brain like no other day yet lived.  I think about this day from time to time.  The sights and sounds still vivid, as if they are occurring in real time.  My eyes begin to water, just short of tears.  Life goes on, it has to.  Our neighbor has since given birth to her second child and although we do not have contact with her, every time I see a picture of her little girl on Facebook, it brings a smile to my face.  If by some chance our neighbor ever reads this, I 'd like her to know that Sarah and I will keep her in our hearts until we no longer breath the air on this planet.

"We must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope."

-Martin Luther King Jr.