The emotions attached to the first day of school were extra overwhelming this year. My daughter started high school, my middle son is now a sophomore in high school, and Sam started first grade. My babies are growing up way too fast.
Six years ago, I planned to come home from the hospital to get my other three kids off to their first day of school. I didn’t make it home from the hospital very often and was excited to see them off on their first day.
During the middle of the night, Sam went into cardiac arrest for a second time. Needless to say, when my baby died in the middle of the night, for me, leaving was not an option. There are many times this past six years I wish I could be in two different places at a time. Or three. Or four.
It slightly haunts me sometimes when I think of the nurse who told me at one point during Sam’s seven month hospital stay, “Jamie, you need to go home, Sam will not remember this, but your other kids will.” She was right and it was said out love.
I have also had several nurses tell me, “Sam would not be here today if it wasn’t for me being by his side all the time.” Talk about having to wrestle with what the best thing to do is. I still struggle with this every one in a while, but it’s neither here, nor there. I cannot change the past. We did what we thought was best for our kids at the time. That is all we can do.
It was an emotional day, but most of my tears were happy ones.
