An Open Letter to Baby Chance's "Mom"

Kristen,

You'll probably never read this, and I pray you don't because that would mean you are not sitting in a jail cell where you belong...but on the off chance that the justice system fails, I want to tell you something. No, these aren't ways that I think you should die or how you disgust me, although I can't say those thoughts haven't crossed my mind.

I don't have any questions for you. My mind has gone over the "whys" countless times...and there's just no answer that could validate your complete disregard for human life. I want to scroll past the news articles regarding your precious son much like the way I drive past the funeral home where I last saw my son's body. I want to pretend like it doesn't exist because the reality of the situation leaves my soul feeling empty and my eyes full of tears. But a mixture of facing my fears and curiosity gets the best of me and so I click on the newest stories and I read what you have done and I want you to know that the news of your son's death has ripped open the scars that my own son's lifeless body left on my soul, and branded you for the time being, my enemy.


You're no stranger to enemies at this point. Your only saving grace from the thousands of infuriated locals is the fact that you are sitting behind bars. I'm not the only mother who has cried over your son.  I am a mother, however, who can identify with the death of a child. And because you seem to be completely in the dark about what being a Mother entails, allow me..


A Mother fights for her children. From the moment they learn of life inside of them until the moment they take their last breath, they will endure countless attempts of the world trying to steal, kill and destroy a part of their child. They don't stand by and watch. They protect.

This isn't exactly a newsflash. That's what every Mother does. It's no secret that there is no stronger, sacrificial, more unconditional love than a Mother's.

But what happens when a helpless Mama is forced to look death in the face and it's too late? They do not run. They do not hide. They.still.protect.


They reach one arm across the bed, frantically trying to find their phone in the dark bedroom while the other hand is underneath a baby who is just flopping around as she tries to wake him up by gently jostling him around. She screams and she prays and she follows the dispatchers instructions. She calls her own Mama and she blurts out in despair "pray Mom, please pray, he's dying." She wants nothing more than the protection of her own Mother's presence while she refuses to leave the side of the boy who needs her.


She runs into a hospital and she searches the faces of the staff praying she heard wrong. She asks why they can't continue CPR, she wants them to do more. Use the defibrillator, use more epinephrine. Do something! She walks into Trauma Room 1 and she kisses his forehead, but it's cold. He needs a blanket. Someone needs to get him a blanket.


She sits on the phone with the receptionist at the Medical Examiners office and she sobs asking how he is and she listens to the soft voice tell her he's okay, and while she realizes that he's not actually in this place, it takes everything in her to not race across town and be there with him because he's a baby and he needs his Mama.


She waits for the call from the funeral home and she rushes to meet him as soon as his body is prepared. "He doesn't have a diaper, he needs a diaper" she says.


She looks up the address of the crematory and she debates going there. Even while his dead body is being burned to dust, she longed to at least be present.


She hesitantly packs up his nursery one year and two months later, and she wonders if she's making the right choice because in her mind, she never loses hope that this was all a bad dream and he'll be back and wonder where his room is.


She sits three years and six months later and she looks over from her bed to an entire wall hosting totes of his belongings from floor to ceiling, items that she isn't ready to part with. Pieces of his life that she still holds close.


She carries a tiny wooden box of his ashes with her whenever she leaves home for more than a day, because that's her baby.


She would have laid down her life and given him his if she had the chance, but she didn't. And while she can't go back to that awful night when the world stole a piece of her heart, she is a Mama to the core, and she will never stop protecting him even after he's left this world.


I want you to know that my human nature wants to hate you. I want you to be my enemy. I wish you could understand the depths of my love for my son because then maybe you would understand how much it pains me when I heard about Chance. A life that didn't have to end. A preventable tragedy.

And then it hit me. Hating you doesn't hurt you. You, after all, have no idea who I am. I have struggled long enough with the pain and guilt of a tragedy that was not preventable. I have gone over the "what ifs and if onlys" and I have seethed with hatred at myself for all of the things that I didn't do but "could have saved his life." I am done hating.

The bars you sit behind may keep you safe from the threat of death, but there is no wall indestructible enough to keep out the torture that awaits, living with the guilt of a preventable tragedy. And I'll be praying for you. Not because I feel bad for you...the hell you will inevitably endure at the hands of your own conscience is deserved. I just can't let the hatred and disdain consume me.

I have thought often about Chance, and about my own son Isaiah, and after the lump in my throat subsides and after my tear streaked face has dried, I smile...because I like to think that as Chance took his last breath, my 3 year old held out his arms, much like an excited big brother would and he welcomed him.

And I hope that Isaiah tells Chance about a Mother's love. A real Mother.

Sincerely,

Isaiah's Mama