Notes From DeLores Estis (Mother of Christian Lacombe) : After spending a lot of time trying to amend my heart following the loss of, what was at the time, my only child. I found solace in writing as a means of personal expression and healing, but after some time the words became more to me. A story of my pain was now beginning to lay itself out in front of me. Following Christian’s passing I was faced with two choices, either accept that this had happened and try to rebuild what was left, or try to prevent it from happening to others. I chose the latter… The writings below are the result of my personal struggle to heal the pain of this loss. If I should ever finish it, I hope to use it as a platform to help other grieving mothers and reach out as a form of awareness to everyone. For the time being, I have named it “Timeline to Tragedy” and please keep in mind, It is very hard for me to read over it for errors, so it is not currently spell checked.
Timeline to Tragedy
On August 13, 2008 I woke up late… A rare occurrence… I dressed myself, then Christian and looked at the clock… If I had to go by the daycare I would never make it to work by 8… My mother didn’t have to be at work till 9 and she had taken him to daycare at least once before. I asked her to take him to day care and even made it a point to ask her to make sure he had breakfast… I would normally eat breakfast with him every morning at the day care… I went back into his room where he lay dressed and sleeping. Kissed him on the head and told him I loved him… He told me in his sleepy little voice that he loved me to… I told him to be good and I departed for work.
My work day was normal… A little added stress for a few deadlines I needed to meet coming up in a few days… I work for a huge environmental company and my job is insuring that their vehicles stay legal for all 800 offices in the United States and Canada…. It was time to do all the vehicle taxes and I had limited time to get them in… I didn’t take lunch, but around noon I thought about calling the daycare to see if Christian was not yet napping and since I was having a really stressful day, I wanted to talk to him for a minute… I remember looking at the phone and grabbing for my cell to get the daycare number out of it… When I reached for the phone, it rang and there I went again… solving one problem after another and before I knew it, it was 4pm and time for me to leave work for school.
On Mondays and Wednesdays I go to college after work and my mother would pick Christian up from day care. I would call every Monday and Wednesday afternoon at 4, when I would leave work, to be sure that Mom would not forget it was her day to pick him up… I was never worried about my mother’s memory so much as I was just an overbearing mother… She didn’t answer the phone… but she returned my call at 5:30pm just before she would be leaving from work. I answered the phone… She said “Yes Dee Dee, I remember I will be getting Christian this afternoon. Don’t forget that I have a concert to go to with my sister’s on the 20th and will be unable to get Christian that day. What do you want for dinner dear?” I told Mom that I would be with Christian on the 20th as today was my final exam and I was looking forward to spending the extra time at home with him until the next semester starts… and that whatever she wanted to make for dinner would be fine with me but I would most likely be stopping for fast food as I was already hungry. I informed her that I would be turning off my phone for the final exam, (something that was not in my norm… I would text my mother and sister and if there was ever a problem, I would know immediately. We said our goodbyes and good lucks and I turned my phone off and shortly after began my exam…
While I was testing my mother was leaving work, about 10 minutes late… She got into her vehicle, turned it on, and turned her body around to back out of her parking space… When she saw Christian… She jerked the vehicle to a stop park and jumped out landing on her knees screaming… Her co-workers and boss approached the vehicle and saw my son’s lifeless body… My mother grabs for her cell phone and calls 911 (this would be the tape that was not released to the press) she screams her distress as the operator tries to make since of what it is that this hysterical woman is trying to tell her… The point makes it across and they instruct my mother to check Christian for response… She touches his face and she knows he is gone… she falls back to the ground and screams uncontrollably, “What have I done! Why! “My mother’s co-worker has also called the police and his recording was released to the press two days later. In the recording you can hear the screams of my mother and the disbelief of all her co-workers who through the years had become as close as family, all the people who have always known my mother to be at work an hour and half before she had to and work late… responsible enough to take care of her family on her own… and unable to believe that the boy who spent so much time running around their shop will never do so again. If any one ever has a doubt about whether my mother did this maliciously, please look up the recording and listen to the screams… then you will know…
The same Co-worker who called the police has now also called a former employee of the lock shop, an even closer friend of the family, and tells him that something has happened to Christian… He doesn’t believe him so this man calls my sister… “Is it true that something is wrong with Christian?” My sister is driving close to the shop, she had been shopping. “I haven’t heard of anything, but I will check with mom.” My sister calls my mother who answers the phone…
Mom: “Hello…”
Nancy: “Mom, what is going on?”
Mom: “How do you know?”
Nancy “Where is Christian.”
Mom: “Christian is with God”
Nancy: “What happened Mom?”
The phone hangs up…
My sister has made a change in her course and heads straight for the shop. When she arrives and sees mom’s vehicle with the sheet over the window… She leaves her vehicle parked in the traffic and runs toward the tan 2007 Honda Civic, screaming… the police by now have started looking for me and have asked mom’s co-workers for a description of me. My sister and I look alike… And she is now running toward a vehicle with a deceased child in it… the police tackle her to the ground where she fights with them. They carry her to a unit and place her inside where they start calling her by my name… She tells them that she is not me and, after much hysteria, calms down enough to start helping the police look for me. The police take my mother into custody and my son to the medical examiner’s office to be placed, naked, on a cold metal slab to await an autopsy.
My mother, a woman who has never been in trouble in her life is now being fingerprinted, stripped, photographed, and placed in a cold cell… The entire time she looks around the room, searching for a method to rid the world of herself… She is disgusted by herself… She is wondering, “How could I have been so distracted… Christian is our world” She sees outlets she could use to shock herself using her glasses… They have placed her in a cell with another person and then quickly come to retrieve her to be put on suicide watch… a room that is not suicide proof… she wants to bend her head down and run head first into the wall, over and over again… She thinks of me and whether or not she has lost both her daughter and her grandson forever… and she would not blame us if she had. They have put her in an orange and white stripped outfit and there she sits, after all of her interviews and all of her questions, and she cries. She knows the police can not find me, she knows that the reporters have been at the scene and it is already on the news, she is devastated at the loss of Christian and she is worried she might also loose me should the police not find me before I find out myself and do something foolish.
My sister has contacting my entire family and rallied people to come to the police station and be there for me. She is calling my phone repeatedly and my phone is still off. She sends texts trying to find out what school I am attending so they can come where I am before I find out on my own… They have already put my sister’s face on the news and they know I will be on my way home before 9pm…
My friend Melissa has seen my sister on the news and she knows that the boy they are talking about is my son… The same boy who has played with her two young boys on so many different occasions. She knows what has happened to him… The news reporter stated that the name of the child had not been released because the mother had not yet been notified… she sends a text message to my phone… “I’m sorry for your loss”
Two others have seen the broadcast as well and have text my phone… “Is it true, is Christian really dead?”
At 8:30pm I walk out of my final exam. The professor has graded my work and had informed me that I made a B for the semester in his class… I’m happy, as I walk to my vehicle, turn on my phone… expecting to have at least one message from my boyfriend who left town the day before. 6 voicemails and 13 text messages… I go to check the text messages and before I can read any of them, my phone rings… It’s my sister… I answer…
Me: “Hello”
Nancy: “Dee Dee, where are you”
Me: “It’s Wednesday, remember, school…”
Nancy: “Where are you now?”
Me: “About to leave school.”
Nancy: “stay there… Dee Dee there is someone on their way to see you”
Me: “Nancy, I don’t have time for this … I need to get home to Christian before he goes to sleep.
Nancy: “Dee Dee, just trust me, you are going to want to stay there… look for a white vehicle.”
Me: “ok Nancy, but I am going to be really mad if you are sending my ex over here to see me.”
Nancy: “It’s not him… just talk to me for a little bit.”
Me: “What about? You are acting strange”
Nancy: “Can’t I just take some time to catch up with my sister? … I’m getting ready to paint Hunter’s room and I wanted you to do it… however you want”
Me; “However I want huh… ok it’s going to be pink and purple…”
Nancy: “OOOK I already said however you want to paint it…”
Me: “No Nancy, I’m not going to paint your son’s room pink and purple, I will just put the paint on the floor and let Christian finger paint on the walls.”
Nancy: “Dee Dee, can you hold on a second?”
The phone goes silent and I thought she had gotten a call on the other line… she had only muted the phone to muffle her cries.
Nancy: “Dee Dee, are you there.”
Me: “Yep… Nancy if this person doesn’t show up soon I am going to have to leave… I have responsibilities to take care of and this is a non-smoking campus…”
Nancy: “Just drive off campus and smoke but go right back and wait there… please trust me.”
Me: Fine but if they aren’t here soon Nan I am going to have to go home…”
Nancy: “Ok Dee Dee, just a few more minutes”
While still on the phone, I drive off campus to smoke and then go back to the school, parking in the front of the admin building.”
Me: “Nancy, It is already approaching 9:30, If I don’t get home soon I wont get to see Christian at all today, honey I have to go, can you tell whoever is coming here to meet me at home if it is so important?”
Nancy: “No just a little bit longer, hold on let me see if I can three way them…”
(Nancy clicks over and dials the number to my Uncle’s cell phone… being a respected man in our family, he doesn’t come around a lot and they knew that for a moment to see him, I would stay where I was.”
(She clicks back over and the phone is ringing)
(My uncle answers the phone)
Uncle: “Hey Dee Dee, how are you doing?”
Me: “Fine Uncle Mike how are you?”
Uncle: “Good… Say Dee Dee where are you?”
Me: “I’m in my college parking lot.”
Uncle: “Which college do you attend south or central?”
Me: “South”
Uncle: Well I heard it was your finals and I wanted to stop by and bring something to you since I just happened to be in the area, would you mind waiting there for me for just a few more minutes?”
Me: “Yes sir.”
(My Uncle hangs up and my sister begins to talk again)
Nancy: “Sorry Dee, it was supposed to be a surprise…”
Me: “That’s alright, but Nancy, my car is filthy… I don’t want him to see my car so dirty”
Nancy: “I don’t think he is going to care about the appearance of your car Dee…”
(As my sister and I are continuing our conversation a campus police officer pulled behind my vehicle and parked… it must have looked strange to him seeing a blue Honda civic with there lights on and the school has been closed for half an hour. I tell my sister he is there as he approaches the car window… It is obvious that my sister is nervous)
Nancy: “Let me talk to him… I bet I know him”
Me: “No Nancy, it is possible that you don’t know ever police officer in the state, Let me talk to him and I will call you back…”
Nancy: “NO, stay on the phone with me, identify yourself and then let me speak to him.”
The police officer asks me for my school ID and license … I give it to him and he walks back to his car… I am arguing with my sister about her talking to the police officer as I watch him check my ID from his vehicle… he gets out of his patrol car … walks to the front of my driver side windshield… looks at the VIN number… looks at the hand cuffs dangling in the window and then returns to his car…
My sister and I continue to argue and finally I agree to tell the officer that she wants to speak with him…
( With my final exams for my first semester over, and having had such a hard time at 22 years old… going to college in the first place, I was now under the impression that my Uncle had a big surprise for me and might be taking me out to dinner in celebration of my first semesters completion… So I thought my sister was going to explain that to the police officer…)
The officer approaches me again:
I informed the officer of my sister’s wish to speak with him and he agreed… I handed him the phone… He said hello, listened for a minute… said ok and walked away from me, out of earshot, and after a few minutes comes back to me… He hands the phone back to me with my sister still on the line, and asks me for MY SOCIAL SECURITY NUMBER! I looked at him funny, I have never in my life had a police officer ask me for my social security number… or be interested in my VIN number before for that matter… has someone reported my vehicle stolen… but it’s my car… I know it is, I have seen the title… I give him my social and tell him, “it doesn’t matter I have life lock” all along knowing that I don’t yet, but I will tomorrow… He asks me if I intend on taking any courses next semester… I tell him that I am and he scribbles notes on a pad… and a white Crown Vic pulls up behind my car…
The police officer asks me if I know these people… I open my car door and look out… The driver door and passenger door open… a blonde woman with a cane gets out of the passenger side and a man in a dark shirt out of the driver side… I do not recognize either of those people so I say no… Then the back passenger side door opens and there is my Uncle Mike… I stand up and say “oh that’s my Uncle…”
(My sister is in my ear…)
Nancy: “I’m sorry Dee… I had too”
(The phone hangs up as I stand to hug my Uncle)
It does not register when I stand that there are now two police officers present (the man in the dark shirt, it was his uniform shirt) a woman with a cane, and my Uncle… I hug my Uncle and he asks me to sit back down for a moment… I sit… in the driver side seat of my Honda with the door open… He stands back as the woman with the cane kneels next to me… I look at my Uncle puzzled… Then to this woman whom for some reason I could already since that I did not like… She, as it turns out, is a grief counselor…
The woman: “Today when your mother was supposed to take Christian to day care, she forgot and he was in the vehicle and was not found until this afternoon.”
(I look at my Uncle and the pain is starting… He nods his head)
Me: “THIS IS NOT FUNNY! WHERE IS MY SON?!”
The woman: “He is with God”
(My Uncle kneels closer to me, puts his arms around me and holds me tight as my body goes into the fetal position in the driver side of my blue 2008 Honda Civic… I start to scream and they pull me out of the car. By this time I am calling them liars and demanding that they take me to my son… whatever is wrong with him… I know I can make it better, he came from me and there was never anything I could not provide for him… Milk from my breast… Blood from my blood… a Body from my body… and I can give him air from my lungs… and he will be fine!!! … They refuse… Telling me that I would not want to see him this way…)
My Uncle moves my vehicle from one lot to another as they load me into the Crown Vic…
Me: “TAKE ME TO MY SON”
(They refuse)
I open my phone and …my contacts to find my ex husbands phone number… I didn’t even take a full minute…
My ex husband lives over 45minutes away from us and there is no way he will come here… not without knowing for sure what is going on… I can’t lie to him; I don’t have the words to lie… I’m still hysterical and I need to speak to the one other person in the world who is going through the very same feelings as I am, but he doesn’t know it yet.
I call and he answers (strange because he usually doesn’t)
I am a little fuzzy on what I told him, but I know for sure I got the words “Our baby is gone” out of my mouth and “No, James… Really or baby is gone!!!”
The counselor takes the phone from me and I start rocking back and forth, no seat belt and not caring about it, crying uncontrollably, as I hear her try to talk to him…. I can hear him, even over my own sobs, crying in the phone… He feels the same… He is the same… For the first time in three years he and I know how one another feels…
The counselor somehow ends up on the phone with his fiancé and she is trying to make sure that James does not drive himself to the Clear Lake area, but that he does get there… His fiancé can’t drive… I’m not sure why… but they offer to send a police officer out after them… James ends up driving…
The phone is hung up now and dying… Doesn’t matter there is no one I want to speak to anyway. I’m still rocking back and forth as the Crown Vic goes ever so slowly down the freeway… I don’t know where we are going but I somehow got it into my head that we were going to the hospital… The car slows and exits Nasa road one… It has only been about 15 minutes… maybe less…
As the vehicle exits the freeway something inside me snaps… I stop rocking, I even stop crying… I look at the officer who is driving the car…
Me: “You arrested my mother?”
Officer Mike: “Yes, we had to.” He replies with only the slightest glance my way as he turns onto Nasa.
Me: “I have to see her… I have to hold her… I need her… You need to let her out now so she can help me… I need my mom… you need to let her out…”
Looking back now I might have sounded like a crack addict begging for just one more hit… fast and short with my words but with a voice full of need.
Officer Mike: “We will see what we can do when we get there, I promise to try”
Me: “I really need a cigarette”
Uncle Mike: “We will be there soon.”
I became confused again when we passed the hospital and turned down a road I didn’t recognize… We pulled around the corner and I could see the police station. It appears my entire family is standing outside looking down the road at the place where I sit… Officer Mike slows the car and asks me if I would like to go in the back or the front… The back entry would offer me a few minutes of privacy and the assurance there are no reporters… I think for a minute and I see everyone… (Those who know me, know that I would never want people to go out of their way for me and if they did, I was always very appreciative to them) I decided to take my chances and see my family… I felt a little stronger until the car pulled all the way up to the group that my family had formed on the steps of the police station and I see their tear stained faces from where I sit… I lost it; it became real again where it had before been surreal.
Me: “No, No, No, No”
The car door opens and my sister is in the front of the crowding group of about thirty… She grabs me, hugs my neck tightly as I try to get out of the car door… She apologizes profusely for misleading me while trying to explain, rather quickly, that she had to protect me… she had to help me… she had to save me from myself…The crowd pushes and Nancy gets thrown aside… She yells… It’s my cousin now who has my neck… My sister raises her voice… “She is my sister and I am trying to be there for her!”
I turn away and say “Please… Don’t fight… Please… not now… Please no”
I am slowly climbing the steps to the police station, hug after hug from family that truly care… crying and sobbing… It seems like a long time since I got out of the car… but I finally make it to the top of the stairs… The police station has big glass windows and I don’t see my mom…
I turn to the counselor and ask her… “Is this where my son is?”
She says no and I ask
“Where is my mom?”
They all tell me that she is there but she is not permitted to have visitors…
I made it inside and grabbed for my cousin… also someone I considered to be a very close friend… (Her daughter and Christian spent nearly every afternoon together as she and I watched how amazing Christian was as he taught his little cousin to speak when she wouldn’t and get her to eat when she would refuse…) I take her outside with me and held her hand as my mind went through everything that was going on around me. My feelings are understandably erratic and I have just reached the darkest moment since this horrible night started… She and I are outside, tucked away in a corner of the building where I ask her for the worst thing anyone in distress could ask for… I actually asked my cousin to kill me. I only asked once. I knew what I was asking was illogical… but at that moment I thought… No at that moment I knew… I wanted to die… This is not something I thought I could handle, and all I wanted was to be with Christian no matter how I got there.
Things become very fuzzy at the police station between arriving there and seeing my mother…I know I demanded to see her repeatedly and that I had asked for an attorney… I remember thinking that my mother was back there… alone… I knew she was probably in a padded cell… I know my mother and I knew everything that was going through her mind… One part of me knew that I needed to see her, because she and I were feeling the same… I knew each of us wanted to die and the only thing that would get us through the night was each other… I knew she was thinking that I would turn my back on her and that she had lost me forever… but if she saw me and it made her feel bad enough… she might harm herself… For me, I had already lost in more ways then one and I could not stand to loose another… I made my decisions quickly knowing exactly what I needed to say to her to keep her here, with me… If I did not see my mother, she would surely loose whatever hope she had left…
I told Sgt. Mike that I wanted to see my mom… That I needed to see my mom…
Sgt. Mike came informed me that he would contact his captain and obtain permission to allow us to see one another… but that I would not be able to see her if she didn’t agree to see me.
I nodded that I had understood and thought …“I really hope she allows me to see her.”
Sgt. Mike came back and told me that we would be going to see her now, but that we would not be able to touch one another… I could not hug her… I felt that this was something that had to be done… I pleaded with him again for that, but it was something set in stone. On my way back to the visiting area, (why there was one, I have no idea since they had a no visitation policy), Sgt. Mike and the counselor were trying to explain to me what to expect…. A small room, with a thick window, and a little hole where we were expected to speak to one another… (Whatever happened to the days of telephones like on TV?)
Sgt. Mike went off one way and we, the counselor and I, continued down the hallway… We stopped at a door and the counselor looked at me, like a pause in a movie… Why they feel the need to make things out to be more dramatic then they need to be, I will never know… I looked at her and opened the door since she was waiting, (I thought I would leave her behind) They told me everything about that room except how yellow it was… it was like walking into the sun… I saw my mother to my right, on a bench in her orange and white stripped outfit… She had been crying… I immediately put my hand on the glass and told her that I loved her and that I needed her… I needed her here with me… She apologized over and over again… She kept saying how sorry she was for what she had done… we cried together and I told her… she is my mother, she will always be my mother and I love her… Before leaving the room I made sure to tell her that orange and white strips were not becoming to her figure… a failed attempt at seeing my mother’s beautiful smile, something which I had always looked to, to know that everything would be alright…
If there were one person in the world that loved my son as much as I did… It was my mother. When my husband and I had nothing to our names and learned that we would be having a child… She gave us the building blocks with which we built our lives… and when we separated, after five years, and I found myself unable to cope… she insured that we had everything we needed… While still raising my 14 year old brother, she took Christian and me into her home and worked extra hours until I found work… She worked hard to make sure that we never fell behind, never went without, and I tried my hardest everyday to show her how much that meant to me. Living in a two bedroom apartment with four people was never so hard as when your roommates with your mother and you are both single parents.
When the visit was over the counselor and I walked out into the hallway, my emotion through the roof and unable to walk very far… she and I found a conference room to use as a grieving area… just her and me…
As we sat there, a box of tissues, my only comfort, the conversation quickly switched to faith… Still knowing that I did not appreciate her presence (but then again, a stranger who brings bad news is never welcomed), we discussed my foundations in God… Not a subject I was ready to face… At the moment I was shaken and saddened that this was the path “Chosen for me.” … I felt alone, and as if God had left me altogether… I was not angry at all… at anyone, even God… I was sad… It is the deepest, darkest place a soul can go, I sincerely hope no one ever understands that feeling… you want to die and can’t, you want to curl up and cry, and you can’t do that either… but I was not ready to talk to her about Christian’s afterlife… and probably was not very understanding of the effort she was trying to put forth… after briefly making that clear…/// we went back out to the waiting area where I was immediately informed of my ex-husband’s arrival. I walked out to the station steps where he had apparently been a fixture since being told that I was unavailable. He was at the bottom of the stairs… sitting on the concrete of the sidewalk with his fiancé kneeling behind him…
I was advised by a family member that it would not be best to speak with him at the moment, that the counselor should probably speak to him first… so I walked off to a corner, outside the station, and watched them…
The counselor went to sit down next to James and he waved her away, making it VERY clear that he wanted nothing to do with her… I don’t think she even got her name out of her mouth before being asked to go… I watched awhile until I was asked to go inside with my Uncle and discuss options for my mother… I wanted her released immediately and was looking for this happen NOW… My Uncle had already spoken to my mother who kept saying that she did not want a lawyer… That she did not care what happened to her… She only cared for me… She didn’t care even for her own life, and whatever they decided to do to her was not going to even come close to what she thought she deserved… I on the other hand knew I needed my mom, and if we were to survive after this we would need one another.
My phone has somehow made it back into my hands and it rings… It’s my mother in law, from Natchez, Mississippi… I answer the phone and she asks me if what she has heard is true… I can hear in the back ground that she is surrounded herself with all my former sister-in-laws and they are all listening for my response… No sooner had the word “Yes” left my mouth… then all voices in that room rise in an upheaval of yelling and blaming… Screaming and cursing… I pull the phone from my ear so I can not hear whatever horrible things they are thinking or saying about me or to me and I speak only into the mouth piece of the phone… “WHAT RIGHTS YOU THINK YOU HAVE, TO YELL AT ME FOR MY LOSS… DON’T CALL AGAIN!”
(To my mother in law, should you read this… your hysterics were understandable and you are not blamed for anything… In order to make a difference, I am opening all areas, I hope you understand, my intentions are not to make you look bad)
I hang up the phone and turn it off… not to be bothered again right?
Still awaiting more information in the police station… about Mom… My sister approaches me with the phone… My father is on his way from Louisiana and would like to speak to me… I put the phone up to my ear and with the winy, whimpery voice of daddies little girl, turn back into hysterics…
“Daddy, My baby!” I yelled into the phone… I could no longer hold my composure… as a true daddies little girl, dad was my hero and he could make anything better right? Wrong…
Unbeknownst to me, my father, having been so far away and a person who truly has never had an easy life, had been lied to about the true tragedy of the situation and had only been told that mom had an accident and that Christian was severely hurt… Which now explains his reaction to my hysterics when at the moment, it was heart breaking to hear the words he spoke to me come from his mouth… Again remember that my father is on his way home from Vidalia Louisiana and someone has told him that my mother hit Christian with the car while backing up… (I don’t know what purpose that lie served as either way, I would have been hysterical)
My father tells me over and over that it was an accident and he knows mom would never have done it on purpose… I keep telling him I know that, but for some reason I have been thrown head first back into hysterics and the counselor has found her way back to my side… and then my father said the most hurtful thing anyone in my position could possibly hear at that moment… “Dee Dee, Suck It Up!”
Unbelievable… I say… “Dad, how can you say that to me?”… and without listening for his answer, I bring the phone away from my ear, my tears have stopped suddenly and I hand it to the counselor, who takes the phone outside and talks to dad for awhile… (I later discover that even the counselor did not catch on to his misconception… and he drove the whole way with the belief that it was less then what it truly was… He was not corrected until my sister called him about 20 minutes later”
Sgt. Mike comes back into the waiting area to give me the news… They would be releasing my mother into the care of my Aunt Ginger and Uncle Mike to await a grand jury decision with regard to any charges being filed…a statement that made me nervous… GRAND JURY!!! That’s the type of thing you only see on Law and Order… my mother and Grand Jury do not even belong in the same sentence… Sgt. Mike said he would go to get the paperwork done and left us…
I went back to my corner outside, back to my corner, outside the building to stand with my cousin… I had used my cousin’s phone to call my boyfriend, Ben, repeatedly… And after the fourth phone call I had gotten frustrated, and not thinking clearly, I informed his voicemail that he should not bother calling me back… I would find a way to cope without him… minutes later… He called… Ben does not live in Houston… His home is in Corpus Christi but he often travels around the United States for work, staying gone for sometimes months at a time… He and I had been seeing one another for only a short time, but I found him to be someone I could confide in and for the first time ever, I found myself dating someone who was unselfish and understanding of my situation. He understood that I would not go out when I had Christian and that, since he and I had not been together very long… He was not yet allowed to have a relationship with my son… “I must know you, before you can know the most precious part of me.” Ben understood and we saw one another on weekends when Christian was visiting his father, so before Christian passed, Ben and I had probably only seen one another a total of four dates, but through phone conversations and constant contact… We had become very close…
When he called me, he asked me what was going on and told me he was sorry for missing my calls but he had been asleep with the phone on vibrate and would not have heard it, if not for the beep of the text message my cousin sent him. I told him about what had happened to Christian and while still on the phone with me… He jumped into a car and started the long drive to me. He’d be driving a friend’s car, since his was being modified, and asked if I might be able to have someone pick him up from the hotel he had been staying at when he was in town. He would be taking time off of work to be by my side… as much time as I needed from him… he would give me. Ben and I work for the same company, only different divisions and he told me not to worry… that he would take care of everything on that end for me … I said thank you and was called away to deal with my mother’s situation… We said adios and hung up the phone…
My ex husband was no longer stationed on the stairs, but had moved to the far end of the parking lot where he sat, sort of in a squatting position with his head in his hands… One of my family members comes over to me… (I don’t remember who it was) but they told me that James had tried to leave and been stopped and that he had lashed out at the counselor before going over there to sit… He had left behind his fiancé and my family to be in solitude at that end of the parking area… Then they told me that he kept asking for me…
At this point, as anyone would be, facing my ex-husband was not something I was looking forward to. I didn’t know how he felt about my mother at this point and I couldn’t see myself finding out that he didn’t understand… and being stranded in this thing alone…
James and I had not been on good terms for the last two years. We didn’t agree on… Well pretty much anything, but more specifically anything regarding Christian… We had fought, a lot, about Christian and which methods were the best paths to raising him… James being more traditional and me being the type of person who would ask anybody and everybody I could find for the best diets and educationally enlightened toys to purchase… only to get them so he could play with the box… and now I found myself standing at the bottom of the stairs… looking down the rows of vehicles wanting to reach out and scared of having my hand slapped…
James sees me standing there, looking at him, and waves for me to come to him… I looked around and found that everyone was watching our every move… It is a very strange feeling… like when you are at the store or walking in the street and you think somebody is watching you… it’s just like that… only when you turn around… they really are… Everyone who was once inside the station is now outside the station, eyes peering at us, wondering if I am going to have the courage to face the only other person in the world who knows EXACTLY how I feel…
I look to Sgt. Mike for guidance… At this point he represents to me, the logic that no one else has… He is trained to understand when there should be a meeting between two people… He understands why I am looking at him and politely asks if I would like him to escort me there and stay close… I slowly nod, and in my own way letting him know that I was a bit scared… I have always been a very proud and stubborn person, so this whole scared thing… yeah… completely new to me.
We started across the parking lot toward James… The feeling was like that of being a child and knowing you had done something bad… and you knew you had to tell your parent, cause if you didn’t then someone else most certainly would…. I knew I hadn’t done anything wrong, but the thought that he would see it that way, killed me inside…
This is the man who gave me my son… and I never denied him that right, regardless of how many times we fought… “A bad father” was never a thought that crossed my mind… as much as we both loved Christian, each of us had different ideas about what was best for him… and it was quite obvious the majority of the time… but never to Christian… looking back now, I wish we had done more things as a family… a separated family, but a family non the less, and I wish we had put our differences aside, more then we already did, and instead of all going to McDonalds together once every two months… doing it every two weeks…
The fear that built up inside of me when we reached the spot where he was sitting was almost enough to make ripples in water, for the vibrations coming off my shaking body… Sgt. Mike went off… standing close enough to help if I should need him, but still far enough to give us our space…
James, now sitting on the curb, still with his head in his hands… looks up to me as I touch his shoulder… He grabs my hand and I fall to my knees next to him… That was the sign I had been looking for… The sign that he understood that we were the same… we had lost the same… and it was (like I said) the first time he and I had been on the same page in years… So there we were… him on the curb, me on my knees, crying quietly, with the occasional loud sob when one or the other of us would put our minds to the truth of the things that had happened, neither of us said so… but we secretly wondered if he suffered… A parent’s worst nightmare, come true, especially if he was hurting… They had already tried to explain to us that he had been sleeping and because of that, even if he had woken up… the heat would have made him go back to sleep almost immediately… but you can’t help but think the worst, when the worst has happened…
I turn to Sgt. Mike and I let him know that there wouldn’t be any problems and he should give us our time… he goes back to the station… I watch as he walks and realize that all the people there are still watching us…. And I don’t care…
Sitting there on my knees and thinking the thoughts I was, the fullness of it became a bit too much to handle and I asked James, my ex-husband and a man a week before I couldn’t stand even being in the same room with, to hold me… he does and we cry more… we didn’t really discuss anything at all, we knew what one another was thinking and that was all that was necessary to get the point across… as a very aggressive person… for the first time not having the words, was strange in and of itself, say for the silence of the people who, we knew, were watching our ever moment with awe.
The counselor approaches and we both look up, James whispers to me that he does not wish to speak to her and I stand… She says she knows he is not ready and she was just coming by to say goodbye and offer her card should we need further assistance… I thanked her and before she turned to walk away… She said “Don’t worry about the cost… The state will cover it…” she was referring to the funeral costs…
I was puzzled as I went back to James and knelt next to him once more…
Me: “Does she honestly think we have any interests in money at this moment?”
James shrugs… looking up at me…
Me: “You know mom would never hurt Christian… Right?… You know she would die before she ever let any thing hurt him.”
I sit there, anxiously awaiting his reply and knowing that he has always been a person of very few words…
He looks up at me and straight into my eyes… “I know”
Relief… I already knew what the response to this would be from most and to know that he and I knew what the rest of the world didn’t, made all the difference to me…
Sgt. Mike approaches and I stand to meet him a little away from James… James is no mood to speak to anyone and there is no one who could know this better then me… That is what five years of marriage teaches you… Sgt. Mike tells me that they will be releasing my mother from the back entrance of the station and my Aunt and Uncle will be taking her… but they would all like to know where I want to go from here…
Me: “Wherever my mother is… that’s where I will be”
Sgt Mike: “Would you like to ride with them?”
Me: “I think I need to stay here a bit longer with James… so I’m not sure.”
I return to James and kneel next to him again… I touch his back and ask him how he will get home… he has no response other then he will drive himself… I think to myself that this is a bad idea and even tell him so… but I know him and I know that he will not allow someone else to drive. I softly let him know that I need to go and ask him if he will be ok? He shrugs and I know, I feel the same… I keep thinking… I want my son, but there are people here (my mother and ex-husband) who I can’t afford to loose either…
James and I now have an understanding and we find our way back to the front of the station… He speaks to his fiancé and off they go… My sister, my cousin, My Aunt Sandy, my mother’s boss (Wayne), Jason (a friend), my brother in law (Greg), and his brother (also named James) are the only people still at the station… My Aunt Sandy is leaving and tells us that my mother along with my Aunt Ginger and Uncle Mike can be found at the Waffle House just around the corner… My Sister’s husband and his brother are going to my apartment to check for reporters and remove the items in every Texas home, that we might be able to hurt ourselves with, should our decision at the end of the day be to return home. My cousin will be escorting me wherever I decide to go…. And I decided that I needed to go home to collect our things… but more importantly… to collect Christian’s things…
We all said our goodbyes and my brother in law, sibling in tow… set off to make sure the apartment was safe from reporters, so that I could fulfill my expressed need to go home for things. I got into my cousin’s car and to top the events off the day… Her little white car, refused to start. I walked in circles around it while Wayne jumped it off and we set off for Cat’s apartment to collect her things. She lived one block away from me and we had decided that nearly everybody would stay at my Aunt Ginger and Uncle Mike’s home in Humble.
The drive there was really quite between Cat and I as I leaned on the passenger door, staring out the window at the Seabrook scenery. We pass Christian’s favorite park and I hold my breath… something to control the tears that my eyes wanted so badly to cry, but had temporarily dried out. There were a few phone conversations between Cat and my Aunt Ginger about where we were and when we would be meeting up with them, but I couldn’t hear them… I had locked myself up inside my head thinking, and dreading, my arrival at home.
It is true what they say… A hard hitting tragedy such as this makes your sense of reality almost completely disappear… I kept thinking that I was in a horrible dream and that I would wake up soon… There was even an occasion where I hoped something had happened to me on my way to school… Like a horrible accident and I was now in a coma… unable to wake up… but that thought was comforting to me… I hoped my fantasy auto accident was the true reality and this one was all fallacy… But some deep part of you knows… even as you hope, and wish, and pray… That it was you who was hurt, that it is you that can’t wake up… You know it’s not true and no amount of anything is going to change that.
When I snapped in that police cruiser, on my way to the police station I made a choice… I could either lye down and die inside… and hope that the inward feelings would become an outward reality… or … I could stand up and salvage what was left of my family… I have always been good in the face of adversity and today was no exception… I couldn’t grieve as I probably should have… I don’t know what conventional physiologists might say was the “appropriate” response to such tragedy, but I know what happened and without having been there and in the situation themselves… I don’t think there is anything they could say worth hearing… at the moment anyway.
As the car pulls into the gate at my cousin’s apartment complex I pull down the sun visor and flip down the mirror… I’m not worried about makeup; I didn’t even wear any that day… but my eyes look old and puffy… I look at the curves of my face… My heart shaped cheeks… Christian’s heart shaped cheeks… My hands, Christian’s hands… My skin… Christian’s skin… He looked sooo much like me… I push the visor away and lean back on the door as my cousin pulls up to the row of vehicles in front of her apartment and parked the car right behind them, not even bothering to park in a space, but behind other vehicles… As she exits the car I ask her to get the bottle of Jack Daniels that was left in her freezer after a girl’s night out nearly six months ago… She looks at me, with an express look of worry on her face. “Dee, that’s a path you don’t want to go down.” I look up at her… “It’s not for me Cat… Dad will be here later and he has my brothers with him… I’d rather have them with me, where I know they are safe.”
She gathers her things, forgetting the bottle, and we depart for my apartment… I am no longer leaning on the door but sitting straight up looking around the corner as we pull onto my road… Nothing, no reporters… No neighbors… good… privacy.
Cat parks the car, in a space this time, and I get out and head for the stairway leading up to our second floor apartment and my neighbor, Bobby, came out onto his porch… as I walk up the first flight to him, he opens his arms and I hug him… Bobby is a great friend and has always been there for us… He starts off by saying that he has no problem testifying in my mother’s defense and if we should ever need me… Please call… I thank him and start up the second flight of stairs. I reach the front door and it is open… Greg and James have been running around inside, preparing for my arrival… I walk in and look at the couch… Still made up from when I slept on it the night before… I didn’t agree with sleeping in the same bed with Christian, he was too old for that now and I thought he should have his own bed… I wish I had stayed with him now though, so what he’ll be a momma’s boy… That’s something for his wife to worry about later.
The feeling of the room is like I hadn’t been there in a long time… Like somehow in the last 17 or 18 hours… months have gone by in my home… The dishes are still dirty from our late dinner the night before… I meant to clean that up before I went to bed… The cloths, which were supposed to be washed today… Still lying in the basket by the door… I enter the living room… and turn toward the hall and I stop… my son’s room is the next one… I start thinking about putting him to bed the night before, and how ever since he had gotten stuck between the bed and the dresser that one night… I would make sure he was asleep before I would go to bed… How he would yell down that hallway to tell me that he needed to go to the bathroom and … no he was a big boy and he didn’t need any help… “Momma, I’m thirsty.” “Momma, can I play with the big red dog.” “Momma, I wanna sleep with my car, and my purple alligator.” “Imma listen momma I promise.”
Even now as I write these words his little voice is still coming down that hall to me… what I wouldn’t give to be back there now… To hear his little mouse voice yelling for me, when he was supposed to be sleeping.
I started down the hall way and went into his room… He had a large full sized bed that stood about three feet off the ground… with a stepping stool so he could climb in and out of bed by himself. He had a big white down comforter (now in space bags), two big pillows, his little Lightning McQueen pillow and Lighting McQueen blanket (they are now with him)… not a little kids bed at all… but it’s the one he wanted… His purple alligator sits where it lay when he let it go this morning… I push my face down in the bedding where only hours before my beautiful boy lay… Breathing… Living… Really Sleeping…. I breath him in with every bit of lung capacity I possess and cry into his pillow… I stay there for a minute… feeling the eyes of all the people in the room on my back… I want to stay there but I am uncomfortable with them here… So I stand, dry my eyes and look around… Yep they were staring…
I grab Christian’s and my suitcase both still full from our stored winter clothes, and empty them onto the floor… I go to the closet and toss things left and right… fur coat to the left, wedding dress from my failed marriage to the right… work clothes and heirlooms fly till I reach the corner…. A red suit Christian wore for Christmas last year… He loved it… it was red, what was not to love. It had fit him a bit big last Christmas and perhaps now would fit properly… I pull it out and gently fold it collar faced out, just as they do at the store, and place it carefully on the bed… as if it would break… but truthfully, it would have been me who broke if it fell… I scrimmage through the comforter and sheets of Christian’s bed… Everyone in the room is looking at me and they must have thought I was crazy… for the way I was ever so carefully moving things here and there… I was looking for something important.
Every night Christian would sleep in his Lightning McQueen house slippers and even if I waited till he feel asleep to take them off of him… he would wake up to put them back on… Sleeping without them was unacceptable to him for even one night… why would eternity be any different… I found them and placed them on top of his little suit with his red vest, crisp white shirt, and pen stripped pants. What else does he need?… Socks… yep socks… Lightning McQueen Socks… Check… I got them and they go into his slippers. One last thing… His hat… and yep you guess it… his Lightning McQueen hat… I can’t find it anywhere and we are all looking for it. I have his pillow… I have his blanket… His suit… His slippers… his socks… but what about the hat? Loosing the hat is enough to make everything crumble… My mind kept thinking… The last outfit he will ever wear… the last time he will ever go to sleep… The last thing I can do for him… and I can’t find his hat!!!
This is the point when your mind starts thinking about everything you could have done better… everything you could have done different… “What kind of mother are you if you can’t even do this small thing for him?” A hat… how hard could it be to just do this one LAST thing… It is the LAST thing you can do… The finality of these thought going through my mind were the hardest things to cope with since finding out in the first place… Eventually the search for the wayward hat was abandoned, and I left the room with a complete sense of failure.
I walked into my mother’s room and began gathering the things she would need… Her night gown… toothbrush… socks… deodorant… t-shirts and blue jeans… I did the same for my brother and finally myself.
Just after I had finished packing our things… my mother appears at the apartment and we finally hug…I hold onto her for dear life in this place that did once feel like home, but without Christian, was just walls, a ceiling, and dirty dishes… no longer home.
Mom and I hug for a long time… I haven’t even truly looked at her face, looked into her eyes. While staring at the floor I had seen her hand and just grabbed at the air… catching her. Wrapping my arms around her, one under her arm and the other behind her head… Pulling her to me hard… It almost hurt, and as we embrace I can feel the energy leave her body… Her muscles relax and she falls into my arms… She has been through this ordeal for the nine hours that have, by now, followed Christian’s death… The physical toll that kind of grief can take on your body is unexplainable… The uncontrollable tears, fidgets, shakes, and the horrible migraine that comes with all that… can drain all the life from your body in a matter of minutes following a horrific tragedy… try going through it alone, with no one to support you, for nine hours.
I pull halfway away from mom, forcing her to take the weight of her body back from mine… we are still holding one another but now we have each leaned back to look at each other…. Face to face…
Life had already taken a small toll on my mother’s beautiful 44 year old face before tonight… but at this moment a stranger might have thought my mother to be a sickly eighty-something year old woman.
I say the face of a sickly eighty-something year old woman, because all the color had drained from her face… even her lips were as grey as her skin, which now sagged under the strain of grief, sorrow, and tears… I couldn’t have imagined, at that moment, exactly what my mother had been through. It wasn’t until later, when I had decided to take a stand and make a difference and had to research hyperthermia… that I truly grasped the horrors of what my mother had seen… I will not write those things down, but should you feel the need to know for yourself, what happens to a human body that has suffered in such a way… you may click on this link now. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperthermia
I still today, cannot truly fathom the horrors that my mother saw… and am split down the middle by the sorrow that she endured because of it and being glad that it was not me. I have had it explained to me that the effect such a memory has on a person is the equivalent of what our soldiers see in the fields of battle. All this explains the drain in her face and the way her eyes glazed when I looked into them. I could still see the sorrow of the loss of Christian and the burden of horror in the face that once laughed so headedly as she tried to explain to me how to tell if a child would pee during a diaper change… but the rest of my mother had vanished from this shell that stood holding me. She was gone… but she was stroking my hair, crying in my shoulder, and holding my face… apologizing over and over again.
It’s a horrible feeling to loose everything in one day… I had lost my son, and my mother in the same day and nothing else in the world held any value anymore… At that moment you could have come into my world and taken everything in my home, taken the clothes off my back, and burned it all in front of me and it could not possibly hurt as much as loosing my entire family in a matter of hours…
We held onto one another for a few more minutes… and then with blurry, swelled up eyes… we took one last look around and walked out the door…
My Uncle Mike and brother, John, loaded the suit cases I had just filled into a truck as I got into the car with Cat… My mother rode with my Aunt and Uncle in the car ahead of us… We were separated again, but not so far that it hurt as it had before, and 45 minutes later… we had reached our destination…
Uncle Mike and My brother, John remove our bags from the car and take them to the apartment above my Aunt and Uncle’s garage… Mom and I follow… side by side up the narrow stairs leading to the two bedroom apartment… bumping and clambering into one another but never letting go. We set our things in the billiard room and went into the main bedroom where I set my mother on the bed, kissed her hand and went into the bathroom.
I closed the door and let the tears fall… No more crying in front of mom… I couldn’t do it… I found myself so scared that mom would try to leave me on her own. So now, not only was I hurting… I couldn’t show it. I sat there, in the bathroom, crying on the toilet, and trying to be quiet so that no one would come in and find me.
When I walked out of the bathroom… eyes dried precariously with the decorative towel I had found hanging from one of the racks… My mother was still sitting on the bed… My Aunt Ginger was running about the room preparing for our stay… my sister and cousin were sitting on either side of my mother holding her and my Uncle and brother were moving about in the billiard area, trying to find a place for everyone to sleep.
All the hustle and bustle around me started to get to me… There were people everywhere and my mind couldn’t process all the things going on around me… It was almost as if you were standing still and the world around you started to burn… not spin… burn. I stood there for a while… watching my family run around, preparing this and doing that… my mind went into a haze and I closed the bedroom door… I gave mom her night clothes and changed into my sweats, I thought I might wear them for a few days, and helped mom get into bed… Not that she needed my help…. But I wanted to help her… The bedroom door opens again and My Aunt comes in and hands both my mother and me a little white pill… She had obtained approval, over the phone, from a doctor to give us a sleep aid (She asked because it is a bit strong). My mother takes hers and I set mine on the side end table… I hate pills… I hate anything out of my control and something putting me to sleep, is out of my control… “I promise I will take it… I just want a shower.”
I lay mom down and stayed with her there for a few minutes… I wanted her to sleep and I would hold her as long as it took to make sure that, while I was in the shower… She did not get up. She held me as I was holding her… She stroked my hair … running her fingers through my long red hair from scalp to the end curls to pull her hand up and back to my scalp again. It was very soothing and relaxing so I closed my eyes… I’m still not sure if I fell asleep or if I was simply picturing Christian in my head… But after a while I saw Christian’s beautiful face, looking down on me. Every time I would have a stressful day at work I would come home, sit on the couch and put my face in my hands… He would come in the living room from wherever he had been playing… Place his hand on my shoulder or one hand on either of my cheeks and say… “Momma, don’t cry… momma don’t be upset.” From that point, I’d get up and play… as I lay in bed, eyes closed, unsure if I was sleeping or thinking… I saw my son now, holding my face and telling me not to be sad and “momma, don’t cry.” I opened my eyes and began to cry… I stood up from the bed, gently edged off the side and headed back into the bathroom where I removed the sweats I had just put on, and climbed into the shower… closing the glass shower door behind me as I sat on the shower floor… After a minute I reached over and turned the knob on, pulling the shower plunger at the same time…
The cold water hit me and I just sat there, huddled in a little ball as the cold water ran over my head and down my back… After a few minutes the water began to warm up and eventually the room was filled by the foggy mist from the steam of the shower… I had turned the water all the way to hot and now it was beginning to burn my skin… My head, neck, back, legs, and arms became red with the heat of the room and the water as I simply stared into the little circular mirror that sits below the faucet… I hated myself… I looked at myself and I hated the person I saw in the circle… She was so pathetically helpless and pitied… I have always hated being the center of attention and would never in my wildest dreams, have thought that this type of thing would happen to MY son… Happen to ME…
I thought about it a lot as I sat there… About how I had always seen the reports on the news and had even thought that the news had been focusing on stories about children, during the summer months, to scare people… or to raise awareness of child abuse… but never did I ever think that I would be sitting in a shower… staring at a circle… hating myself… and missing my boy.
I stayed there… Just thinking and crying for what must have been a really long time as the cuticles around my nails had begun to pull away from my dried, dehydrated fingers and the water ran cold again… and still I sat. I didn’t want to move… I pictured Christian coming into the bathroom as children do… and telling me that it was his turn for a bath next and I’d break down and start over again… It was an endless roller coaster that sat still in a puddle of cold water, and when I finally decided to exit this ride… It was five am.
I stood in the shower and finally turned the water off… pushing the plunger to release the water into the faucet head back down… I opened the glass door of the shower and grabbed the towel that I had placed on the rack closest to me. Dried myself and wrapped my hair as I put my sweats back on… The water had been cool so long that even the mirror in the bathroom was no longer steam covered as I’m sure it had been during the hotter portion of my shower… And I looked into it. I remember every thought that went through my head on that day and some of the most profound of those came from my time looking at myself…. It is the moment when you know you hate yourself the most. Looking into the mirror… The negative thoughts I had were enough to bring me to my knees… as I clung to the edge of the sink, I thought about what a horrible mother I must have been for this to be the result of my labor… Punishment for my short comings… It was as if I finally got struck by the lightning bolt I had always been expecting to someday strike me down.
I recovered myself from the floor and opened the bathroom door to the bedroom where mom lay… finally sleeping… I kissed her and walked out into the kitchen area and sat at the table to listen to the voicemail messages that had been left on my phone… The sounds of these panicking voices, at that moment, made me feel sorry… for myself… as I was thinking about how blissfully unaware I had been… Trying to get my sister to let me leave campus so I could go home and hold my boy before bedtime, read him a story, and kiss him goodnight… I had talked about letting Christian paint his little cousin’s room… I had stood with a smile and greeted my Uncle openly… In my head, I saw myself as they might have seen me… and I was sorry for the me that was in that moment. I wanted to reach in and grab her from understanding and knowing… to keep her innocently happy to be receiving a good grade and excited to tell Christian… He might not have understood… but it was something he could have been proud of me for and that’s one thing he and I shared together… “Christian, I am soooo Proud of you” “I’m proud of you momma” I know he was mimicking me, but it always felt good to hear it from him… But the me in that memory no longer existed… I’m not sure what happened to her… but she is gone and has yet to return.
After saving a few of the messages, unsure of what I should do with them, I closed my phone… a few minutes later it rang… My father, he has called because he is unable to remember which house is my Aunts but he knows he is on the right street… I direct him where to go and head back into the room to check on mom… She opens her eyes when I open the door and reaches for me… I hold her for a bit and kiss her head as she falls back into her induced sleep. I gently remove myself from the bed to go greet my father…
Down the stairs and out into the driveway, my father’s four wheel drive pulls into the driveway. From the vehicle, emerge My Aunt Lorie, My Aunt Lisa, and My cousin Cassie. From another vehicle that had been following my father, my cousin, Pat who has always been like a brother to me… arrives… They walk up the pathway to me and embrace me for a minute after which I lead them over to a sitting area in my Aunt Ginger’s back yard… My father asks to see my mother and I have to tell him to let her sleep for a bit. We all sit in the circle and listen as my father talks… He has been drinking heavily and they all have something to say about how fast, and erratic, he had been driving. He had turned a six and a half hour drive… into four hours, as my Aunts tried, unsuccessfully to tuck themselves under the back seat and hide the bottle. (my father is not an alcoholic… just really bad at holding himself in bad situations… not to mention that when he received the call that he had to come home… he had been celebrating his 45th birthday… Definitely a day he will not soon forget.)
My relatives and I carry on about an hour of chit chat… The conversation goes here and there and I go through the majority of the events they have missed… Recounting it so soon after was not a pleasant experience and my father held me for a bit… Dad was very broken… He was obviously upset and went in and out of yelling and crying. He recalled how angry he had been when we told him I was going to be a mother… He recalled my troubled pregnancy and how he had celebrated Christian’s birth by upsetting me… making sure to tell my husband at the time, that it was time to step-up… He went through his list of regrets and recounting the worst birthday he had ever had… I let him talk… the years had taught me that my father was a proud man and he had his own way of dealing with things, until he asked me why I hadn’t been crying… Since leaving the bathroom for the last time, I hadn’t shed a single tear… I had decided that I couldn’t be seen crying anymore… just as it had made me feel uncomfortable in Christian’s room… It would be uncomfortable now… (With the exception of the funeral, and dropping a single tear during the televised memorial, no one has seen me cry since. I am only able to cry when I am alone.) To answer him I simple said, “Because it’s not about me and it’s not about you… It’s about Christian”. I suppose that made him think about his previous comments and how everything he had stated was a me, me, me attitude… Or more like a “how this affects me” attitude…
Different people handle tragedies differently… I had observed anger, grief, disbelief, misery, strengths, and weaknesses, already. I held those who were crying… Spoke to those who were outraged and angry, consoled the grieving, and explained the unexplainable, let those with strength console me as I consoled those with weakness. Those people who say “I should be holding you, but here you are consoling me…” I knew the light that was inside my son and how many people loved him… enjoyed him… and had always complemented him. He wasn’t just everything to me… He was everything to a lot of people. My families glimmering hope for our future, and he was already on a fast moving path to greatness… But he was already great…
When the sun began to come out we made arrangements for my father’s side of the family to stay with him… as My Aunt’s home was already full to capacity and my poor Aunt was already being incredibly gracious, so I felt that adding to our crowd might be imposing. Before my father’s departure, I took him upstairs to see my mother, who couldn’t have been asleep for more then two hours. Mom opened her eyes when we entered the room and, again, reached for me… I climbed into bed… allowing her to hold me and after me, my father climbed into bed next to me… I had one parent, on each side of me… crying, and holding me… I couldn’t help thinking that this was the first time I could ever remember having my parents this close to one another, and I was sure it would be the last… Unfortunately for me… The bed is a full size and all three of us are pretty big (boned) people… I was being squished and loosing air… Claustrophobic and unable to enjoy this, otherwise, touching moment, out a respect for my parents I stayed there… for as long as I possibly could before pushing my father off the end… standing… and proclaiming that I had to make sure my Aunts were doing alright, I walked out of the room… My father lay back down with my mother and held her… She was sobbing but I am almost positive that she was asleep… Dad only stayed there with her until he was sure she was sleeping and came downstairs, where I handed him a cup of coffee to go and asked him what time he would be back. He assured me that he would be back within the next five hours and loaded into the truck headed for Crosby.
After kissing my relatives, and saying our goodbyes and be safes… I walked into the main house, in search of coffee… My first attempt with the fancy espresso machine in my Aunt’s kitchen was unsuccessful to say the least, so I sat at the table for a few minutes before my Aunt came in… She hadn’t gotten much sleep either and was now on the coffee train with me. She walked into the kitchen and fiddled with this and that and, to my amazement… Coffee came out… A few minutes later, people started filing into the dining area… groggy eyed and shuffle walking… they to got their coffee and sat at the table with me. My Uncle came in… Fully dressed and looking sharp, turned on the television, and sat at the table with us. He looked across the table at me and informed me of his plans for the day. Today he would contact the family funeral home to begin making the funeral arrangements. He was sure that there would be questions I needed to answer and wanted to know what my plans were for the day.
Looking around the table at my family members, watching me and holding their coffee I found myself looking at the TV… The news… It was on and they were talking about my son… My Uncle quickly changes the channel and we continue our conversation… I thought about it for a moment and told him that I needed to go to my office… (I had all of the eight by ten picture of Christian in my office and there are a lot of them… The eight most recent, professional, pictures and two of the cutest ones from when he was little… and then there was the only picture that exists of Christian with my father…) I needed these pictures… Then I needed to pick up Ben, go to the Daycare to see if there was anything in his box… he might want to take with him. Oh yes and don’t forget that my car is parked somewhere in the Pasadena/Houston area. I told Uncle Mike all of my this and informed him that if there were any questions… he could call me and I would have my phone with me… I also gave him two other contact numbers… Cat’s and Ben’s… I would not be driving myself, since I had not slept so Cat would have to drive until we reached my car… Then it would be Ben.
I sat at the table with my family… Some of them ate and others couldn’t (I was among those who couldn’t but never the less… a plate was given to me). Eventually my mother came down and sat with us at the table… I hugged her and placed my plate in front of her… told her to eat and let her know that I had to go run some errands but would be back with her later… I told her to shower and mellow out for the day… “Stay with Aunt Ginger and have some sister time.”
Never once had anyone in my family told her that “It wasn’t her fault” or that “It would be ok.” But that it had been an accident and that she had been forgiven… But she hadn’t then and still hasn’t now… Forgiven herself, and she might not ever be able to do that. I haven’t met a single person since then, that hasn’t cocked their head to the side in wonder at how this type of forgiveness is possible… It is simple to explain… This kind of forgiveness is part of two things… The first is knowing in my heart that my mother would never, could never, hurt Christian… To know what kind of person she is… She would gladly have placed herself in front of a bus, train, moving vehicle… before allowing something to hurt the people she loves… I know these things because I am the same… many who know either my mother or myself, know that we would give our last penny for a friend, or even an acquaintance in need… and have, in the past, placed ourselves in financial difficulty to help others, and when this caring comes back and bites us on the hand… we are the type that shrugs and says “ God has seen us to be good… and he has seen them for what they are… and will judge them for their shortcomings on his own.” Not many people can say they are capable of that kind of caring or selfless giving… My mother is… The second thing I know about my mother is that… without a doubt… I love her unconditionally.
Wikipedia describes unconditional love as (a term that means to love someone regardless of his or her actions or beliefs. It is a concept comparable to true love, a term which is more frequently used to describe love between lovers. By contrast, unconditional love is frequently used to describe love between family members, comrades in arms and between others in highly committed relationships.) My love for Christian was Unconditional… He could have done anything… told me he didn’t love me… told me he didn’t want me to be his momma… Even so far as to say, He hated me… and I would have loved him regardless… You never know if the love you feel for others in your life is uncondtional… until it is tested. Unconditional love, to me, before Christian’s death… was reserved only for Christian… When wikipedia says that it is “a term which is more frequently used to describe love between lovers” they are wrong… The moment your lover cheats, lies, steals, or says one to many hurtful things… Your love is gone… The love you have in your heart must be more then this… It is the love of a child, the love of a parent… and because I have been a parent… I know the love in my mother’s heart for me and for my son… My personal belief is that this is the only kind of “Unconditional” love there is.
After a few more minute, spent among my family quietly… I received a call from Ben… He is at the hotel and ready to be picked up… He hasn’t slept either… I grab Cat… Kiss my mom… and off we go.
It takes us anywhere from fouty-five minutes to an hour to make it to the hotel in Baytown… I think Cat and I spent the whole time pretty quiet… I had opened my bag and grabbed my journal… Something I write in everyday… I open it and start reading the entries from the past week… every page said something about how blessed I felt to have Christian… I read page after page of everything Christian and I had been through… From swimming last Thursday for only 30 minutes because I had been to tired to spend the whole hour out there… and how upset he had been at me when I told him that I was just to tired to stay in the pool… “Mommy needed some sleep.” I hadn’t made an entry since Monday and it was now Thursday… Which explains the way I originally felt about Christian’s last night with me… My mind skipped a night and automatically remembered Sunday night…
Sunday night I had put Christian to bed, made sure he was asleep, told my mother to watch for him… if there were any problems… call me and I would be right home… and then I left to see Ben off… He was leaving Monday during the day and I wouldn’t get to say goodbye since I would be at work. I had stayed out late and didn’t get home till almost eleven… It wasn’t until later that my cousin Cat filled me in on the last night Christian was alive… I had gone to Cat’s house to let Christian and Emma play… They watched Diago, and a few other cartoons, with Cat and me almost all night… He had had pizza for his last meal… and almost polished off half of a large pizza by himself… (Since Christian was such a small three year old… If he would eat it, he would get it… but half a pizza was amazing)… We had danced in the living room… in Emma’s room and in Cat’s room… to the same two songs over and over again… and when Christian and Emma finally got tired, late late late… I had taken my tired little man home and cuddled with him until he was completely asleep and I slipped out of the bed next to him and took my place on the couch in the livingroom…
I had felt like such a horrible mother… When I was thinking that the events of Sunday night had been Christian and my last night together… I tried so hard to keep men away from Christian… my parents divorced when I was younger and my father, throughout the years, had had a few girlfriends… all of which would stay long enough for me to except them and in many cases their children as well… and then they would bolt, disapearing from the lives of my sister and me altogether… I had grown attached to a few of them and been hurt when they would simply walk out of my life… I never wanted Christian to have to “understand” that someone was there yesterday and gone today… It’s truly not easy being a single parent and trying to make the right choices… Me personally… I didn’t want anyone around Christian if I didn’t know the real them and I have been known to not introduce anyone to Christian if I had not known them… at the very least… six months… So thinking that my choice to stay out late to say goodbye to Ben, might have put Christian in jeopardy… was excrutiatingly painful… Finding out that his last night with me was pleasant and fun, offered a bit of relief… not much… but a little bit.
I turned to the next blank page of my journal and picked through my bag, found my pen, and stared at the blank page… I don’t know what I thought I would write… or why I thought I could write in a moving vehicle in the first place… Having a bit of OCD was never good for my journal… If I am writing something, and for some reason the word gets mispelled, written crooked, or scratched through for any reason… I have to rewrite the whole thing… The only thing I managed to write in the whole time I had my journal out was… “I can’t believe my sweet baby is gone.” And “Why the hell not me?” That was it… I wrote nothing more… I did however have to write those two sentences three different times… the roads in Houston, if you don’t already know, aren’t the smoothest in the world…
We arrived in Baytown and Ben’s hotel and he met us outside… I got out of Cat’s car and gave Ben a long hug before putting myself in the backseat… Stating that I really wanted to write but I didn’t have the words… So I just sat there as we headed for my office… sitting next to Emma’s carseat… I started to cry… I leaned my head on the window with my face pointed torward the world outside and was careful not to sob… I didn’t want the attention crying would bring… but at that moment, I had to cry.
My office is only five minutes from the hotel so… in no time at all, we arrive at work… Ben has called ahead and asked a friend of ours to make sure that noone was waiting around in the halls… Make sure that I would not be bothered and give me the privacy I needed to get what I wanted from my office and get out… Dispite his previous phone call, he went in ahead of Cat and me to make absolutely sure there would be noone between me and my office. When we finally got inside I walked into my office and went straight for the eight by ten picture of Christian when he was about six or seven months old… There he sits… in the picture with and ALL STAR baseball striped onesy with an overly autographed baseball… There was no stopping the tears… they were falling but at least I was quiet. I turned around to face my deck… where the majority of Christian’s pictures had crouded my immediate view point from my chair, to find my boss… staring blankly at my computer screen… on the phone with IT and turning to look at me… I have to admit, I knew I looked attrotious and was a bit embarrased that ANYONE would see me that way… He got off the phone and immediatley offered his condolences… I thanked him and introduced him to Ben… (Ben worked for the same company but a different location and department… He doesn’t work in Houston). I turned and looked at my desk… intending to grab all the picture I could from here I was confused to see the scribbles on almost everything… I grabbed a sticky note and a pen and wrote my user name and password for him… Told him where he could find the information he was after and left a contact number where I could be reached if there was anything he couldn’t figure out…
I felt really bad… (I had not worked there long and had not truly gotten to know everyone and who they were). My boss is a very nice, extremely professional person who, I think, takes a lot upon himself and leaving him with everything, I know, he had going on to turn around and have to do my job as well… It’s like I said… I have always been the type of person who really doesn’t want anyone to go out of their way for me… and even though I had been through sooo much… I told my boss that I would be back to work as soon as possible… I wouldn’t leave him to take care of everything for too long. He told me to stay out as long as I needed (with eyes that I thought said… “God please, I hope not too long”) and I gathered the rest of Christian’s pictures… Loaded them in the car with me, in the back, and we headed off for the daycare…
After making a quick stop at Cat’s house to pick up some scrap booking material that she thought might help with the set up at the funeral home… we arrived at the daycare. I walked in and was immediately huged by the director as she went into tears… When she saw the story on the news the night before, seen my sister crying, and remembered that my mother had been a locksmith… she just knew it had to be Christian. She had called one of Christian’s teachers and demanded to be called the second Christian walked through the door in the morning… I had called the daycare at ten…. It had been loud in the background so when I said… “It’s Christian’s mom” She didn’t hear me the first time… The second time “It’s Christian’s mom.” Her reply was simply “oh no.” She had cried then too. But now standing before her and surrounded by Christian’s teachers I held each one as they cried on my shoulder. They had already gotten me a plant and gathered a few of Christian’s things for me to take home… His blanket and sheet for nap time, the precious arts and crafts he had placed his tiny little hands on to make, scribbles on paper and one which he had written his two favorite letters over and over again… G and H… Ban and Cat are there with me trying to relieve me of the load as I was attempting to hold and touch every little thing… every thing he touched. These are the things he loved…
He loved his school… I would pick him up excited to see him as he would tell me about all the wonderful things he had learned throughout the day. Being as obsessed as I am… I wanted every little detail of every single day. I stood there remembering everything… Christian’s favorite day, splash day, The kids get to spend half the day outside playing in the water and running around… he loved that… Then of course there was the day he implanted a rock right up his left nostral… That was an adventurous day ending in forceps and icecream… and of course the daily reminder which now followed…. “Christian what are rocks for?” “Playing and Walking, not for sticking up our nose”… Everyday was something new for us and standing here… looking around it was hard to imagine that I would never again walk through that door… enter the code into that computer… and sneak back to Christian’s classroom to peak through the door and surprise him… Opening the door to hear at least four other children scream “ Christian, your mommies here!!!” and have Christian come running… of course if he had been in the middle of something he might need to be pulled away and tickeled out the door… It was a flood of giggle and tickels that filled my head as I looked around this place. After a little while we decided that it was time to hit the road…. I turned to say goodbye to the daycare director as a light bulb went off in her head… “Wait just a second there was something I forgot.” She ran into the back and returned after a few minutes… holding Christian’s HAT!!! I might have screamed… I know for sure that I cried… I had felt so horrible the night before when I was unable to find it… and now Christian will have his hat… His last outfit was now complete.
I held his hat close to me as I huged the teachers once more before leaving to retrieve my car from the college.
The trip to the college seemed to be a very short ride… I leaned my head on the window, clutching at Christian’s hat and even at one point… singing to it. The sun beat into my tired eyes and I had to squint till my eyes were nearly closed… We passed the park where Christian played and, as I had done last night, I cried.
We reached my car, where Ben and I got out … I took a good look around and slid into the driver seat… Thinking about the spot I sat and what horrible tragedy had occurred in this very spot the night before. I had lost the only thing in life that was important to me, the only thing in life that was worth the shackels of maturity that every mother willingly and lovingly places on themselves. My whole world had ended in this spot no less then 12 hours ago… What was there left for me to do? And as Ben slid into his seat next to me, I clutched his hand in mine as we drove off the campus and down the street. I am still unsure of whether or not I will ever go back to school, but at that moment, I was sure I never wanted to return to that place again.
Ben and I drove in almost complete silence all the way back to Humble… 45 minutes without a thing to say except for Ben’s occasional question posed to me regarding whether or not I was ok to continue driving… “Yes, Driving will keep me focused” my reply was short and in a tired voice… Ben reiterated that a nap was in order when we reached our destination, and soon enough we arrived and quietly unloaded the car from all the things we had recovered. Ben’s suitcases, Cat’s scrap booking stuff, and most importantly… Christian’s hat, which had managed to stay in my lap for the duration of the drive without falling. I held it close to me as we walked down the row of cars… undoubtedly family, which had come to see how we were doing and if we had managed to survive the night, not just physically survived, but with our relationship intact.
We walked in through the back door of the house.. removing our shoes as we entered my Aunt’s home. My mother, Aunt Ginger, Uncle Mike, Brother John, and Sister Nancy, were all sitting around the table in my Aunt’s dining room. Ben and I took our seats next to them after I gave my mother a reassuring hug and kiss… My mother sat next to me, Christian’s blanket thrown over her shoulder and wrapped through her hands… She had taken a shower as I asked and was clean, but no less sad looking. Her face still stressed with the horrors of hours before, she looked older still. My mother who had always been known for her beautiful smile, hearty laugh, and prankster since of humor, now sat before me with no emotion other then complete sorrow and a lack of life within her made it hard to see any remnant of the woman so many people loved. Her shoulders slumped, her back slouched, her eyes drooped, and to me it seemed a miracle she could hold herself up long enough to walk. I love my mother and seeing her this way, and knowing there was nothing I could do to make her smile, hurt. My tired mind wrapped around this reality and I held her hand as I listened to my Uncle… We needed to “talk” about funeral arrangements.
He began by asking me if I wanted to bury Christian in the family plots as my Uncle Charley and Grandparents had been. “Yes, but I will need to ask James.” Second… “Did Christian ever have x-rays done?” … … … … “They will not release Christian’s body without positive identification, backed by medical records” …
Hearing this did not make me happy. I had seen movies before where they had some window and the next of kin would go and stand there… while they show the body of their loved one to them through that window or a monitor… I did not want to do that… My next thought was… “What if he had never been sick enough to need x-rays? Would they then keep him there forever?
I thought over my Uncle’s question… X-rays… For months leading up to Christian’s death he had been on a Nebulizer… The doctor had thought he was in high risk of having asthma and had even thought he had a truly awful case of Bronchitis about six months ago. He had had x-rays done at a hospital in Clear Lake… I gave my Uncle this information and the doctor’s names and phone numbers… Christian has had a few doctors and I had always kept all medical information in an envelope safely in my laptop bag, in case of emergencies… I wasn’t sure which doctor had requested the x-rays, but I knew where I had taken him to get them done. I gave that information along with every Medical bill (which had dates and times when Christian would have seen a doctor) which I also kept with me, I was always scared something would happen, and I wouldn’t be able to provide and accurate medical history… It started when I was pregnant with a bag of my own medical history, which I carried with me, along with a homemade waver stating that if something should happen and I find myself hospitalized… they were to save my unborn child at any cost.
I turned my attention back to my Uncle… “And what happens if they can’t get the x-rays?” To which he replied “I’m not sure sweet heart”
We move on to the remaining information necessary to bury Christian. Do I want him buried near the adults or in the children’s section of the cemetery? Do I know what I want him to wear? Do I know if there are any special requests from James? I answer his questions as best I can and he explains the rules of the cemetery to me. I need seven signatures from varies family members to use the last plot in our families section. Every heir to the plot would be every living relative directly related to my Uncle, as the plot is between him and my Grand Parents. Uncle Mike will take care of that for me. He has already spoken to most of them and they have verbally agreed, but they don’t all live close, so getting their signatures might be a little more difficult.
Exhausted, I thank him, hug my mother, grab Ben’s hand and give it a squeeze to indicate I am going out of the room… He stands with me as we excuse ourselves to a place where I can have room to reflect. It is now after six in the afternoon and I have yet to sleep… Ben suggests I should lie down and guides me up the stairs of the garage apartment to the room. I change into my sweats and climb into the bed… Ben, does not change, he just lies down next to me… we lye there… staring at the ceiling and I see Ben close his eyes. I continue to stare and no more than a few minutes go by before I just know I will not be able to sleep… I start to sit up and edge my way over to the side of the bed… Ben opens his eyes and reaches out his arms, to embrace me, holding me close to his chest, and closes his eyes once more. I lay there… listening to him breath, looking around… positioning my head in the space between his arm and his side to get the coolest air possible, where I waited… I thought I might wait till he was fast asleep to get up again… eyes wide open, and without making a sound, I cried… with too much silence to bear I thought about my prospects and how I was being held by someone I cared for… and was still completely alone. I don’t know how long I lay there, looking around and silently crying into Ben’s shirt… but before I could try to get up again, Ben opened his eyes to check on me… He ran his hands through me hair… dried my face with his shirt… and asked me to please close my eyes… And I did, and then I was asleep.
Dreamless sleep… which didn’t last long… My phone had been plugged up in the corner of the room and had not stopped ringing… I put it on vibrate, but while I had been sleeping, it had vibrated its way from the top of the dresser, falling to the floor and waking me from the sleep I needed but couldn’t stay in. Just as well as only seconds later my sister burst into the room… I had slept for 15 minutes and now sat straight up in the bed… Ben looked up as my sister who was presently trying to catch her breath… “Dee Dee, you have to see… James is online defending mom, hurry, you have to see…” Ben mumbles to her that she needs to leave me alone and let me sleep, but this falls on deaf ears as I climb out of the bed and go into the kitchenette area with Nancy to look at the laptop which she has set up on the small kitchen table. She pulls up article after article… written about Christian and Mom’s case. I pour over each one and am amazed at how incredibly insensitive people can be… each comment sticks into my chest and twists the blade even further in… The press still does not have Christian’s name, and I am relieved for that… He is not a public figure, he is my son and he deserves to be respected, if for no other reason, then that he is gone and his family is hurting.
The articles were mostly informational and had no opinion either way about them… But the comments people left were cruel at best and heartless at worst. I read comments from people who pondered about whether or not my mother was an addict, on drugs, or alcohol… Some comments even pointing blame to me for not following through with my motherly duties… Like I should have known better then to trust the person who raised me and saw me through to a full grown adult alive, with my child… Comments which sounded to me as though people actually think a mother has the super power to see into the future and I had somehow ignored what I had seen… sending my son off to die. I have heard it all… “If a third party EVER took my child to day care… I would call the day care.” “The mother just runs off to do god knows what, ditching her child on the grandmother and now that something has gone wrong… she will seek sympathy.” I kid you not these were real comments people had posted, publicly about two people they did not know… I knew people would not be understanding in any since of the word… but I had not expected to be judged myself… I knew they would attack mom and I was ready to stand up next to her and tell the world that “Yes, it is my mother’s fault my son is gone… but none the less it was a terrible accident and I know my mother would never have hurt Christian on purpose.” But never in my wildest dreams, did I think that my abilities as a mother would be a focal point people would latch onto… Every once and a while I saw that Baltain would comment back to these ignorant people, explaining that he was Christian’s father and then proceed to stand up for my mother… the woman that had supported us in our first years of marriage… and had opened her home to a skinny boy from Mississippi before marriage was even an option.
To explain the mental state of a “normal person” after a tragedy such as this one involving a child… you might seek the help of a professional psychiatrist… I can only tell you what I was thinking and how things affected me… When a child dies it is never a good feeling… but I can tell you that when your child dies, a parent will always find a way to place blame on themselves… I went through, and am still going through, half a dozen ways to blame myself for my actions… Here are a few ways I found to place blame on myself… “If I had listened to my instincts and moved out and on our own when I knew I could afford it… instead of listening to everyone else… There would have been no way Mom could have taken Christian to day care… we would have lived to far away.” “If I had put my son ahead of myself and stayed in my marriage for a few more years… till Christian was old enough to go to school… This would have never happened… James would have watched Christian while I was at work and vs. versa” “ If I had not stayed up all night with him watching cartoons… he would not have been so tired and he might have made noise … then mom couldn’t have forgotten him.” “ If I hadn’t taken full custody of Christian and just let James be the primary parent… If I hadn’t fought for him so hard.” “If I hadn’t been so worried about getting ahead in life… I could have taken the extra five minutes to drop him off at school.” … The list goes on and on like that… To hear other people… people who didn’t even know me, passing judgment on me as I was passing judgment on myself gave me twice the punishment… I felt I deserved to be punished and that what I was getting so far… was a light sentence compared to what I deserved… and it still is…
Many members of my family commented on these blogs in defense of my mother and me. You can see examples of what I am talking about by clicking on these links… you can also see the comments I left…
http://www.kwtx.com/home/headlines/26947339.html
http://www.kbtx.com/news/headlines/26953959.html
http://www.omniscient.bloghi.com/2007/08/14/woman-who-left-baby-in-swelting-hot-car-to-die-walks.com
These are just a few examples if you would like to do more research on your own google Christian Charles LaCombe, Donna Chesser, or 3 yr old Seabrook boy dies after 10 hours in hot car.
The Comments on these pages, however I might have felt about them at the time, I now feel that people can love my family or hate us… The point is that they are thinking and that’s all that matters.
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