Saturday 24 November 2007

He was someone's baby

I heard the phone ring, checked the caller ID, and saw that it was my Baba (grandma, for all you non-ukrainians).  She usually calls to check in on me, and mostly her little sunshine, Sacha.  Sacha is her first and only great grandchild, and she lives for him.

This conversation was not a check-in. She was calling to tell me that a little boy in my hometown was killed in a quading accident.  I knew this boy.  Well, I remember him as a preschooler, which, at 12 years of age, he no longer was.   She told me the details as she knew them, and spoke of his mother, crying out to her son to wake up.  "I know how she feels," my Baba said, a distinct tear in her voice. 'I know how she feels."

It's not the same, I thought.  This was a young boy, killed in a senseless accident.  My dad died at 41 years of age, and although it was an accident, he had lived a life, married, and had children.  He was an adult.  How could it be the same?

After hanging up the phone, I realized it is the same.  The young boy was his mother's baby.  My dad was my Baba's baby.  He may have been 41, but she cried for him and held him on his death bed just as I hold Sacha when he bonks his head or cries in the night, with all the love and care a mother has for her baby.  When she  thinks of him, she thinks of her lost baby.  Just as Sacha is, and will always be, my baby.

I looked at Sacha differently after that conversation.  Yes, he is my 15 month old baby boy, but he will always be my baby boy, that I'll live to love and protect as long as I live.  And that must be the hardest part for my Baba - feeling like she didn't protect her baby when she should have.

It isn't right for a mother to outlive her child.  It just shouldn't happen.  But it does, and no matter whether the baby is 2 months old, 12 years old, or 41 years old, it pierces the soul in a way that cannot be repaired nor explained.

And I pray that I will never have to explain it.

9 comments:

  1. This post made me bawl. Beautiful and so true.

    My FIL died in August and his mother is still living and her words touched me over and over again. "Hold tight to your boys you never know where life will take them."

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  2. Oh, I'm crying now!

    My Grandma lost her son (my uncle) when he was 40 and I know very well that she knows how it feels. She's never really been the same since (it happened 12 years ago.) A parent should never have to bury their child. Heartbreaking.

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  3. P.S. I'm also very sorry that you lost your dad at such a young age.

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  4. I pray you never will have to as well.

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  5. As Robert Munsch says, "I'll love you for forever. I'll like you for always. As long as I'm living, my baby you'll be." Or as my sister-in-law says," I have them dead and buried every day!" Worry is a Mother's right.

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  6. I too am crying after reading this. I pray none of us Mom's have to out live our own children.

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  7. oh, that's so sad. i'm sorry that you lost your dad so young...

    a couple of months ago, the daughter of someone i went to highschool with was killed in an ATV accident. she was 7 years old. i held my boys so tight that day...it still makes me shudder.

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  8. It's something I can't even let myself imagine. You're right...no parent should outlive their child.

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  9. What a great post, Sarah. Thanks for the heads up. I'm glad this one didn't feel the wrath of the mark as read button.

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