Left alone, feeling a tenuous thread stretching taut skin over adipose tissue and tender flesh—pink, vulnerable womb empty; umbilicus severed; blood dried and brown. Perspiration beads on my brow, my breasts are heavy with milk. The letdown eases the waning contractions, starts to erase my recent memory of pain.
On March 11, 2017 I lost my beloved twenty-five-year-old son to the disease of addiction. He was a beautiful, creative and compassionate person with enormous potential. Receiving the call from the police that he was dead from an overdose was a nightmare no parent should have to experience. Driving to his drug dealer’s apartment to identify his body was not close to any situation I had read about in parenting books as he was growing up.
Two maxims come to mind when I think about parenting, maybe because I was pretty lucky until the teen years.
In the early years, I didn’t need maxims. As a single parent, I needed support and friendship, child care, a good job, health insurance, and a bit of luck–all of which we had as a family.
Cradling this two-month-old baby boy in my arms, stroking his face, savoring the infant skin.
Wait, what is that? A gap, something in his jawline?
My heart races. I run my fingers gently over that same spot, the one that worries me, this time using my palpating finger more intentionally.
As a family medicine physician, I’ve uttered some rendition of that speech numerous times during my career. Yet, when the tables are turned, those words were less than comforting.
6:00 am. Husband feeds the baby, I wake up the three-year-old.
6:15 am. Feed the kids breakfast, pack lunches, get the kids in the minivan.
Throughout my pregnancy, I didn’t know if I was having a boy or a girl–I wanted to be surprised. When my baby was delivered, the doctor yelled, “It’s a girl!” A daughter–what I’d hoped for! Although I would have loved a son equally, in all honesty I’d hoped for a daughter. I thought long and hard about her name, wanting something significant, and chose Olivia, which means peace, and Rose, because I had a passion for roses. Olivia Rose.
What do I do with that name now?
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