For Carl

Everything in life can change so quickly. 5 weeks and 6 days can seem a short time, but it can also feel like a life time.

Here in South Africa I don't use my mobile phone very much, most of the people I talk to are in Europe, so we use email or chats or Skype. I often don't even carry my mobile with me.
But when we came to Johannesburg with Carl, and gave our mobile numbers to the hospital so that they could contact us if something happened, I started to put my phone on the bedside table next to our bed when I went to sleep, just so that I wouldn't miss a call from them.
They called from the hospital a few times, always in the daytime, always starting the call with "your son is doing fine", and then asking us for consent to do one thing or the other.
And every morning I woke up, happy that I had woken up by myself and not by the phone.

But then one morning the phone _did_ wake me up. And the call didn't start with "your son is doing fine", instead the nurse said: "your son is not doing well, you need to come to the hospital".

Now, when I am going somewhere, I still automatically reach for my phone, thinking "I have to be available in case they try to reach us", and then it hits me that there will be no more important phone call, the worst phone call of them all has already been made, it woke me up from my sleep and it shattered my dream, in every possible way.

When we arrived at the hospital you had just died. We got to hold you for a precious hour, your body was still warm but very bruised, and your eyes were closed, those same eyes that had been peering at me so eagerly the day before. How difficult it was to take farewell of you and leave you in that room.

I loved you so much Carl, and I miss you.
There was a short time when you were recovering and they took you off the ventilator, and we for the first time could hear you cry, a small weak cry from untested vocal chords.

I would sacrifice anything, absolutely anything, if I could hear you cry like that again, anytime, night or day.

Did you cry a lot that last night, when they were trying to save your life? I hope that you had images of me and Mummy and our voices in your head, and maybe memories of the songs I sang to you in the hospital; that you knew how much we and everybody else loved you; and that perhaps it soothed you in your last moments.

Your life was short and difficult and full of pain.
Now you don't feel any pain anymore, and whereever you are, I hope you are playing nicely with your brother.

Pappa