March 7th, 2016 as I sat at American Family Children’s Hospital surrounded by family and friends, we eventually had to say goodbye to Zaire. As I road on the bed with Zaire to the wings of the surgery center for his organ donation surgery. I cried and I begged him to wake up in that moment. As we neared the door I laid there, I kissed him, told him I loved him, and then I looked up at the surgeon and told him to take care of my boy. As I walked away, I felt weak yet courageous that Zaire would be saving someone else’s life…2 times. I didn’t understand the purpose and message of even his name.
As I returned to work trying to fit into “normalcy” everything seemed foreign. As though I was looking at life in a different lens. I was demoted from a position to a lower position due to the birth and untimely training happening then Zaire’s death. As my managers communicated amongst themselves; concerned for me and if I was okay and going to make it, I then realized that life would not be the same.
Day after day I would return to work to talk with people who’d loss their loved ones and that being the reason they needed an arrangement on their bill. I often wondered why I would get these calls and how I was tired of getting these calls and crying on the phone. I decided that I would then apply and get a different position with a different company. Within a month same type of call; except this time, it was a mom whose son had died as well. As I sat and listened to her talk to me and tell me about her son my heart smiled. It smiled because she trusted me with memories of her beautiful child.
As time went on, I would get calls from different people asking me if I knew so and so and I’d always say no. Until I got a call about a 2-month-old who’d passed from similar circumstances to Zaire. I reached out to the mother and we talked and kept in contact. Months later I’d get another call from my sister in love that her grandbaby had left the Earth, then months later there was another baby one week before Zaire’s 1st birthday. After that I was contacted by two Angel sisters via Facebook about their kids and how sorry they were and we eventually changed numbers and we too kept in contact.
As we each attempted to maneuver our loss and grief, share stories about kids and laugh at the few memories that we shared