My Precious Baby Boy

8:05am

You enter the world. Dead.

The panic button is pressed and the emergency team rushes the room. You are swooped out into the hall without so much as a word. Your umbilical cord was wrapped around your neck and you suffocated during delivery. Your tiny, unmoving body was blue. I had no idea what was going on.

Every second stretched into minutes, waiting, wondering, and then you cried.

9lbs 1/2oz, small clenched fists of confusion and upset, you were a miracle within minutes of your birth.

You are a miracle to this day.

I remember not being able to hold you when you came home from the hospital. Some neighbourhood children came to visit and they held you without fear. Why couldn't I do the same?

I remember making your lunches for school. The walk there was fun, I believe we even held hands the first time. Venturing outside the home was a newer experience. And the first time you rode a bus! I'll never forget how anxiously we waited for that big yellow beast to pull up.

I remember when you'd get in trouble at school, or fight the children on the bus. Those little brats...they completely deserved it, you never started fights.

I remember the funeral we had when your pet worm fried in the sun. And then later, when your first (and second) hamsters died. I remember how we held each other after our first dog died. How you would look into my eyes and tell me everything would be okay.

We fought. Oh, the violence, but we didn't know. As time passed we learned to treat each other as safe havens. As sheltered ports for the storms. We came to rely on each other, often seeking the other's advice.

I threw you once... and cracked your ribs. It was an accident, but I remember waiting in fear for the ambulance to arrive. I was prepared to never forgive myself, and then you forgave me first. It would have been selfish for me to hang onto that guilt when you so easily released it.

I remember you teaching me how to play video games. Or how to work the computer properly. Or removing the viruses that I accidently allowed on to the computer with my naivety for the internet. Always helping me, without judgement.

I remember giving you the talk and then having you tell me that you had already learned it in school. Sigh.

I love how open we always were with each other. How it wasn't a big deal to say: I'm depressed, because I was never afraid you'd stop loving me.

Time is my worst foe, and in these last dying moments I reflect upon my precious baby boy, everything he was and is to me. I mourn his loss, but in his place I celebrate the man he has become.

8:05am

The year was 1991.

Very very shortly my baby brother will be 20 years old. He will no longer be my precious baby boy, but I can be nothing but proud of this strong loving man who has taken his place.

I love you.