What I Learned From the Death of My Son
Gavin lived 76 days. What he taught me will last forever.
Today, January 7, makes 10 years since Baby Gavin passed. I’m sharing a story with a life-changing lesson.
A decision had to be made. The impossible decision. A nurse quietly entered the room and injected a dose of epinephrine into my son’s IV. I wouldn’t have noticed her except that when she left, she closed the glass door behind her and drew the outer curtain for our privacy.
We were alone. After days and days of incessant attention from multiple doctors and hospital staff, the room was completely quiet. Quiet, that is, aside from the gentle rise and fall of the ventilator and the soft beep, beep, beep of the heart monitor.
Adrenaline coursed madly through my veins. The room spun around me as I sat, disoriented to the point of nausea, on a stool beside his bed. I gripped the bed rail to keep from tipping over. But I wasn’t watching him. My eyes were glued to my wife, Natalie, as she fell into the chair in the corner of the room and wept, chest heaving, face pressed hard into her hands.
“This is a decision we shouldn’t have to make,” she said almost imperceptibly, running her hands frantically through her hair and pulling it tight away from her face.
