Unexpected Healing....

      Last month I was interviewed by one of our local news stations. I was asked many questions and we talked about so many things related to my Sterling and congenital heart defects. I had no idea what the story would look like once completed. I was very surprised at how much focus was on Sterling. I also shared a picture I had been scared to, the one of him so swollen in the PICU. I didn't want anyone to see him like that, I wanted them to remember his shining eyes and giant smile.

     Yet I also knew one day I would share it. One day it would be important for the world to see my beautiful baby boy swollen, with a breathing tube keeping him alive. They would need to see me standing next to him, his blanket draped over my shoulders. One hand cradling his head and the other holding his hand. My face swollen from crying and the look of sheer panic and shock. I knew one day I would need to share, I just didn't know how freeing it would be for me.

     When Sterling first died I couldn't remember him not swollen. I would close my eyes and all I would see was him laying in the hospital bed. I would hear the machines beeping and breathing for him. I could only feel the way the fluid went to his back as I held him after he was pronounced dead. The way my hands imprinted on his back and head. I could only remember and feel my baby in his final moments with us. It took lots of counseling, lots of talking with friends to remember my living, breathing, smiling baby boy.

     I had this one photo of him laying in the PICU. This one photo that I hid away in paperwork. The one I tried to forget. The one that I would come across on accident and it would break me. I wouldn't be expecting it and I would end up in tears every single time I saw it. Then one day I shared it. In a small group of grieving women. And then I cropped my baby and shared it publicly on my Facebook. Then I shared a little more of the picture when I went to Washington, DC. Each time I worried that other people would not remember him any other way. Each time I was surprised with so much support.

     Then it was used in this story in a way that made so many people take notice. First they saw my beautiful boy happy, smiling, loved and then the dreaded picture while the reporter is saying something along the lines of "there was nothing she, nor paramedics could do to save him." I dreaded how I was going to feel about it. But I felt freed.

     So many people who come into my life, they see pictures and videos of my very much alive, happy, smiling boy. They tell me how they have fallen in love with him. They tell me how sorry they are for my loss of this beautiful boy I called son. But they never really understood the horrible sights we saw. I held that part so private. Now more people know. More people were given a glimpse into the horror of what CHD's do to a beautiful baby's body. They see my face so desperately trying to make sense of it all.

     Today marks 3 1/2 years since that photo was taken. One of the three worst days of my life (Sterling stopped breathing on the 1st and officially died the 3rd). Today I looked through his clothes and smiled. Tears came but much later and after some wonderful memories of his beautiful body in those clothes. Today I miss my son and would still give anything to have him here again, even if only for a moment. But today I feel a little lighter. The weight of holding tight to the horrors of those days are lifted. Sharing his life and his death are healing my heart.