Easter Day
Easter day: a pewter sea, white chevroned wave caps under grey banks of stratocumulus clouds. Eddies of sand swirl across the beach. I sit with my wife, wearing jeans and a fleece while my youngest daughter buries my son in the sand and my oldest daughter dances into the wind, twirling and leaping on the massive stage.
Later, when I return to the rented beach house to retrieve sunscreen, a granola bar, and water for our dog I notice my phone light up with a text. There is a picture of an Easter card—yellow construction paper with a cut out paper Easter egg, the circles and lines carefully colored in orange, blue and green pencil. Along the top, the words “Happy Easter” are written in unleveled handwriting. I smile with pride at the painstakingly formed letters, feeling thankfulness for his mother’s thoughtfulness in sending me pictures after all these years.
Eight years gone by. Who was I then when he was a baby? Who am I now? So many things have changed, while others have stayed the same. Memory clutches some moments tight while others slip away, leaving only the dregs of remembrance. Standing in the quiet of the house, with the range of the Atlantic out the window, I think of a moment from Brayden’s hospitalization, one that will always remain etched in my mind, “sitting next to the radiant warmer with his parents, the high frequency ventilator thumping in our ears, a strip of white tape across his face to hold the breathing tube, his face dwarfed by the ear muffs we placed over his ears to shield him from the noise of the ventilator. I remembered pulling up a brain MRI to show his parents, pointing out the markings of injury. I remembered his body so small and bloated, a result of hydrops, a nebulous condition that started in the womb and led to fluid accumulation in his abdomen, around his heart and lungs, and under his skin. I remember the enveloping bleakness and unrelenting powerlessness I felt” (When All Becomes New).
It feels like a failure to not have his story occupy an entire chapter of my book—he certainly deserves it, but I could never quite get the thread of it. It proved elusive, the paragraphs always fading to nothing. Of course, that failure rests only with the storyteller. But what I see now is that, for me, Brayden’s story has always been about the after story. Yes, he was sick—as sick as any baby I have cared for, and every part of his hospitalization was fraught with uncertainty but when I think of him, those images recede and I think of who he is now. I think about seeing him with his mother one hot summer day at our NICU reunion, “….straight blond hair and a handsomely angular face, looking grown up in a collared shirt and pants”.
I think about the thread of pictures and videos his mother has sent me over the years: Brayden running unassisted across the driveway, sending a football spiraling into a target, dressed up in a Duke Life Flight uniform for Halloween, a picture from when she drove him by the hospital to see where he was cared for as a baby—the same entrance I walked through a thousand times with the semicircle driveway, metal lettering above, the glowing lights from the wall to ceiling glass windows, red helicopter landing lights on the periphery of the roof. I have a picture of Brayden with his mother, their cheeks pressed together, smiling into the camera for World Cerebral Palsy day, a back to school photo of him wearing a polo shirt, hair slicked to the side, shorts and a Jordan backpack, more videos of him jumping into a pool, spinning on one foot dancing. I’ve been able to follow Brayden in a way I haven’t for other babies. I’m thankful to his mother for that privilege, and I know I will be able to continue in his journey, cheering from afar.