Bethany

Slowly, painfully I push myself up from my knees, then moving in almost robotic form, I help my wife of 6 ½ years to stand with me, leaving the small white box that was so starkly contrasted against the green grass to it's own fate. Memories of the life that box contained rose up in my mind like a tidal wave, reminding me of just how natural that contrast had been in her life.

The news of a pregnancy in a family is normally greeted with happiness and joy. However, when her mother and I found out Bethany was on the way, less than six months after the birth of our second child, Erin, we were in a state of stunned disbelief. This child was not expected, but still loved, not planned on, but would be tenderly cared for. Even before her birth, an enduring conflict of joy and pain was beginning to take shape in her life, almost as a trademark. My wife and I were both overjoyed at this precious gift of God, and anguished at the appearance of our third child so close to our second.

My own relationship with Bethany was cloudy from the start, as emotions ranging from irritation to guilt formed a veil between us. Even at her birth our emotional separation was physically manifested as a job conflict would separate us by 2500 miles. I had been on hand for the births of both of her sisters, Andrea and Erin, however Bethany, never quite followed after them. When she finally decided to appear, she came out larger, later, and farther away from me than either of her older siblings.

I wouldn't get the opportunity to even see my newborn baby girl for two weeks, my first impression of Bethany was one of almost mandatory parental pride I didn't have any emotions one way or the other. However, as I watched Bethany for those first few minutes, I became keenly aware of the impact she was having on other people in the room.

I watched as Pride radiated from the faces of her mother, and Andrea her oldest sister, each time Bethany smiled or cooed. Her other sister Erin, had a glow in her eyes and almost seemed enthralled, anytime Bethany did anything at all. My wife's mother who had been with her as Bethany was born the only grandchild she would be in the delivery room with, hovered around the newborn like a great she-bear protecting and nurturing the young child.

In the weeks that followed, I watched as each day more and more people were captivated by Bethany's smile. Such a little child with such a big smile, she could light up even the biggest grouch, or help to evaporate the most depressing of circumstances.

The more I studied this little bundle of love, the more acutely aware I became of the way Bethany influenced other people's lives. To the woman next door who had just lost an unborn child at full term, Bethany became a replacement and a link to her sanity. To a young couple down the street that was struggling with the idea of having a third child, Bethany was the reason they settled on two. To a young 11-year-old girl who was recovering from sexual abuse, Bethany was the center of her universe, a simple non-threatening way for her to come slowly back to reality.

To her Mother and I she was a joy to our lives and an erosion of our parental zeal, as Bethany also had another part of her life seen only by a few people. There were times I felt helpless, watching the instant that her face would contort in pain and she would scream out as if in the grip of some unseen terror or watching as exhaustion slowly engraved its scars on my wife's young face. I felt at the time that Bethany having colic was the worst possible thing that could have happened to our family. However, compared to later events it would seem insignificant.

Up to this point in her life, Bethany's physical development had been quicker than either of her two sisters' or with that of most children in her age group. It was if she was if she were trying to compress a lifetime into a few spans of time. I would soon wish I had paid closer attention to this feeling.

One Monday in January 1981 almost five months after she was born, I came home for lunch, as I walked into the living room Bethany who was sitting in her swing, broke out into one of the biggest smiles I had ever seen from her, and it warmed my heart. This is strange I thought, normally she cries when I come in, we still hadn't grown very close and our interactions usually upset her.

A little over four hours later as I pulled her limp body from her crib, a victim of what we would later learn was S.I.D.S. That smile would be the most precious gift I had ever received from her.

As I relive that time my mind races along a narrow corridor, a few moments of history etched in my memory by fear and terror. Everything is in slow motion, as I remember her lips were so cold as I was trying to breathe life back into her. I prayed for her to cry out and respond with her normal vigor, desperately desiring for her to scream, but her chest is stiff and unresponsive as I frantically work to make her lifeless heart respond.

In the emergency room when the senior physician on the code team shook his head and said, "That's It, I'm calling it at 5:13 PM we can't do anything else." I wanted to scream, cry, and jump up and down, anything to get them to continue. Instead, I stood for a few moments next to lifeless body after the nurses brought me to her. I was awash in emotions so deep; I wanted the pain in my heart to subside, trying desperately to hold back my inner most thoughts of anguish that threatened to sweep me away.

I was brought out to the nurse's station and was given my time to call my wife and tell her what she already knew, her baby, OUR baby was dead. I would tell her later I have never said anything, harder than those four words. The hospital administration staff had me sign the legal documents and release papers, amazed at how detached and unemotional the process was. Sign here and here, the stern looking woman who appeared to be pushing sixty said, as she pointed to the spot on the papers in front of me. I kept thinking doesn't anyone care that she is still my 'little girl,' my baby, but I couldn't get any words to form in my mouth.

When they were finished I snuck back into the room just to say goodbye, as I turned to leave I heard a small voice say, "Tell Mommy that I love her too." As tears fell unashamedly down my face I realized, my daughter, my beautiful little girl, was still having an unexpected impact on the lives of those around her.

Even at the funeral as my wife and I moved away from that small white casket our tears falling around us, as we comforted one another in our sorrow, a sorrow that only parents share at the loss of a child, at the loss of their future. I felt Bethany's life once again wrapping around my mind, in much the same way an old woman would wrap a shawl around herself to keep out the cold, to feel protected, yet all alone.

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