It's like talking to the moon. ~Bruno Mars

When I look back at the last year, May 2010 until the present, I say to myself, "Damn! You're still alive and kicking!" It has been a tough one for me personally, especially with DJ. I'm still trying to figure out how to constantly be a model of what I want him to learn and how I'm dying for him to someday be able to speak to me.

I'm more fortunate than most parents with a child with special needs. I know how much he loves me, he's very affectionate and loving. But I wonder how this world is when he's looking out at us. Does he want to be part of our world too?

He's had a lot of changes this year too. Several new people were introduced in his life and are working towards getting him to the next level. But he's had a great loss too that I feel affects him still to this day.

In February 2008, while I was pregnant with DJ, my abuelo passed away.  Needless to say it was devastating, but it was more so for my abuela. She now had to uproot in life in her 90's and live with her daughter, my aunt.  In June, DJ was born.

I guess you could say that DJ took my abuelo's place in her life.  When I would pick him and Adriana up from my aunt's house, he'd always be at my abuela's side. So similar to when I visited my grandparents, they always sat a certain way. Abuelo always in a rocker and abuela on the couch, never failed.  So there was DJ in his rocker sitting next to abuela on the couch.  Such a sight!

Their relationship was the sweetest ever. She'd drag his rocker to her if she felt that the space between them wasn't close enough. And they would sit there, together.  His birth helped her through the rest of her life with us.  He helped her through a lonely time. And she'd never had to tell me, in my heart I knew it.

On October 8th, we went over to see my aunt and abuela so that they could meet Chloe since her birth 2 weeks prior. Abuela thought Chloe looked like a little doll. So cute! As abuela played with Chloe, I contemplated taking out my camera to snap a picture. Eh, I said to myself, next time.  We were going to stay for dinner but I remembered DJ had therapy and I didn't want to cancel it. "We'll be back next week, Thursday. We'll have dinner and I'll bring dessert!"  Our exit from my aunt's house was always the same, hugs and kisses from the kids to my aunt and abuela.  Bendicion!

That Monday, we got the call. A call that you dread to answer in the early morning hours. A call that is never good unless it's a wrong number.  As I stared at the ringing phone, Danny says, "Aren't you going to answer it?" I didn't answer it but the blinking message offered me no escape to whose voice was leaving me bad news.  So without listening to the call, I checked the caller id. There was the number, my aunt's home number.

I called it and a crying Lety was there to answer. Abuela was being worked on by the EMT and they weren't getting a pulse.  They rushed her to the hospital as they got a faint pulse but her chances were slim.

I knew there was no turning back for her, she was old, tired and sickly.  Now I had to face my parents and tell them the bad news. I had to stay strong and positive though because miracles happen all the time.

So my parents came up from Florida and relatives, her children, were called and began arriving too. 

When we visited her at the hospital, she was hooked up to machines. The doctor was very realistic in the likelihood of her survival, and it wasn't good.  So on October 14th, abuela was taken off of her machines and allowed to rest in peace.

DJ still remembers her. I take her picture and ask him to point to abuela. He gets it right everytime. 

He looked for her the first time he visited my aunt's house. He wandered the house searching for her and then looked at the empty space on the couch and smiled.

Comments

  1. God bless you, DJ and your family Lois..luv ya
    From scooby doo

    ReplyDelete

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