Oh Logan

This morning I learned that we lost another little one. His name is Logan, but he was called "Peanut"...which is what we called Kaylee. His dad is an amazingly dedicated father and caregiver, one of the few dads who stepped up to the plate in full riot gear. He quit his job, and stayed home full time to be the main person to care for his son. This is one of the first photos I ever saw of Logan, that his dad sent me shortly after he joined the SMA Support chat list. It made ME smile, anyway. He periodically sent out "Peanut Reports". The one I got this morning said this:

"Logan died this morning, between 6 and 7 Am., leaving us, his family and body of friends, without him, and very distraught. He would not wake up, and was unresponsive, although still on his respirator. We got immediate attention from our extremely local Fire Department/ Ambulance transport, and went to the nearest hospital, where they told us he was gone. As I never know what, exactly, to say to my peers, after they suffer such a grievous loss. After having experienced it, I still have no words."

Matthew Watts
Logan’s Dad
New Hampshire

I just think about what they will go through over these next few months, and then over the years, and I wish SO much that there was something, anything that I could do to take some of that off of them. I remember waking up, feeling good, but feeling something Looming, and having the realization hit me in the chest like a load of bricks, "He's dead." And how for awhile every time I woke up it felt like I'd lost him all over again. Lying in bed at 3 a.m. with my mind spiraling around the "what if's" and "should've done's". Feeling a ball in the back of my throat that I could barely swallow past that was a combination of fear, anger, panic, and a scream. How it felt to go from 24 hour care of my child to...nothing. Quiet. No purpose. No idea of what to do or what to think or how to get through the next hour in one piece. Holding on to my emotions because I was afraid that if I started to let them slip, I'd just lose my grip and shatter into a million pieces. Watching people I didn't know lower my son's tiny coffin into the ground and feeling completely illogically that I couldn't walk away and leave him there all alone, that he was too little to be left alone. Fearing as the months passed that he would be forgotten, having it finally settle in that I wasn't going to be with him any more on this earth, closing my eyes and trying so hard to remember the shade of his eyes or the smell of his skin, looking around at my perfectly still, perfectly quiet, perfectly clean home; all of these things that a person can't begin to imagine, even if they try. When it's you, it feels like nobody loved their child more than you loved yours, that nobody could survive this kind of loss and pain, that nobody knows what it's like. And I'm not sure anybody can know, because even though other people have gone through it, there's nothing they can do to make it any better, nothing they can say that will bring peace or that will make it okay. Each child is their own miracle, and each loss is its own inexplicable tragedy. SMA really is a monster.

My heart hurts for Matt and Deb, and for far too many others...