“Mom?” His tone seemed unhurried, but serious. “I think Wil is hurt.” Those were the words that interrupted our “school morning” routine. After breakfast, they had gone outside to wait for the bus that would pick them up at the end of our driveway. Today, something had gone terribly wrong.
Getting outside a little early had always been a bonus for them. They used the extra minutes to play, what boys play, before school. This day had been like so many others and yet I knew immediately that something was not right. With a jolt to the heart I realized that I heard nothing. No screaming, no crying, no threats – nothing.
I dropped what I was doing and immediately ran for the front door. As I stepped off our porch, I saw him. He sat on the driveway clutching the back of his head. I reached him before his brother said, “He fell from the rim of the basketball goal.” I reached out to him and found with a sickening touch that the back of his head was mushy. Without a thought to further injury I scooped him up into my arms and carried him inside. I ordered his brother to make sure he did not fall asleep while I called for an ambulance. I rushed to the phone and called, all the while praying that he would be okay. Thankfully there was a fire station situated in our neighborhood.
As I returned to the livingroom and held him, time slowed to a crawl. I was aware that head injury victims could go from lucid to unconscious quickly, as the brain began to swell. Terror congealed in my veins and turned my heart into an icy lump. Finding it difficult to breathe and even more difficult to speak, I began to talk to him. If these were to be his last conscious moments, I wanted to fill the time with everything I wanted him to know. I told him how much his dad and I had wanted him, how much we loved him, how proud we were of him, and how he fulfilled our hopes. He lay limp in my arms as the first responders arrived. I handed his small body over to them and watched as they began to work with him…
