319 TWINKLE TWINKLE LITTLE STAR part 15

... As a gathering of dark clouds rolls over the sun, it’s time for Grandma to push open that screen door, so you and she can walk toward the buggy in which Janet has been napping on our back porch.

Please stay close to Grandma as she pushes open the door, steps out onto our private back porch, and bends over the navy blue buggy to rouse the ‘sleeping’ infant, so you can feel the shrillness of her scream coursing through you as she shouts out—Jennie!”
As Ella's panic, slices through this peaceful day, imagine Jack's whistle dying midstream; imagine canned goods falling out of Jennie's hands, straight to the floor, as my parents fly like arrows toward Grandma’s shrieks.

As Jennie and Jack crash through the screen door, their eyes dart from Ella’s petrified expression to their baby’s sleeping form. Janet’s lifeless body lays heavy in the buggy—just as she’d been laid to rest several hours ago—on her tummy, face to one side, long lashes sweeping down toward one cherubic cheek.

Imagine my blond, blue eyed, solidly packed, five-foot-six, startled, young father standing next to my terrified, young mother, as they and Grandma huddle round the buggy, peering frantically down at their child, who’d been bright eyed and vibrantly alive three, short hours ago—

         Imagine expressions of horror imprinting deeply into Jennie’s, Jack’s, and Ella’s faces as my mother lifts the small, limp baby out of that buggy, and Janet’s pale chin falls solidly against her chest—

         Imagine my mother cradling her child, attempting mouth to mouth resuscitation, while my father spins around—flings open the screen door and holds it for my mother, so the panic-stricken pair can dash through the dining room and down the hall—with my terror-stricken grandma in close pursuit.

         Imagine a frightened, little girl, two weeks shy of three, eyes like saucers, staring up at her terror-struck mother, who’d grabbed a powder pink blanket out of the buggy to keep her precious baby safe from the cold.

         Imagine three adults tearing through that apartment—while—pulling up the rear is—the little caboose.

         Imagine my mother crying out, “Jack! Jack!  She’s alive!  She’s alive!”  Because the baby’s body is exhaling the breath that my mother will continue to blow into her daughter’s tiny mouth—all the way to the hospital.

         Imagine my father grabbing up the car keys on the telephone table—yanking open our apartment’s front door, so he, Mom, and their precious bundle can rush into the hall and down those same three flights of stairs without a thought to grabbing their coats—

        Imagine a pair of pounding hearts running toward their car—leaping in—speeding toward the hospital as fast as the wind—

Inhale.  Exhale.  Inhale.  Exhale.  Breathe Janet.  Breathe

Oh God—please breathe, Janet, breathe!

Imagine my super-hero dad parking the car—

Turning off the ignition—

Flinging open his door—

Jumping out of the driver’s side—

Racing around the car to help his wife—

Imagine Jennie and Jack running into the emergency room—

Imagine a nurse taking Janet from Jennie’s protective arms—

Imagine Jack sitting down.  Filling out paper work—

(Filling Out Paper Work????)

Imagine Jennie and Jack pacing—waiting—praying—

Pleading with G-d—Waiting—praying—

Pleading—Waiting—Until finally—

They stand up, as ashen as marble statues, watching a white-coated doctor walk toward them—and hearts pounding—they keep hoping—

Until their last shred of hope snaps in half—

Imagine my parents absorbing the opaque expression on the doctor’s face.

Do words make sense when a stranger explains that he can’t explain why their baby is irretrievably—gone?

How does the mind make sense of words that make no sense at all—

Imagine the impossibility of any semblance of thought shaping up as hope dies as surely as did their child. 

Imagine blood pulsing against pain so crushing as to cause two hearts to constrict within my parents' chests.
Imagine the impossibility of walking out of that hospital—

The impossibility of driving home—

The impossibility of leaving their beloved daughter behind—

With strangers in a morgue—

Imagine an autopsy ordered to determine the cause of death—

Imagine a mother and father standing and staring at—what?

At each other after the doctor, expressing his condolences, walks back to his life?

Do they hold each other tight?

Do they sob?  Or has each frozen solid in denial where they stand?

My mother doesn’t remember.  My father’s not living to ask.

Imagine two robots making their way out of that hospital.

Imagine all you like.

Though we can try to imagine every emotion, we can’t imagine what Jennie and Jack felt, unless we’ve walked in their shoes and experience *Déjà vu —

All you and I can feel, today, is compassion growing strong.

Try as we might, we can’t fathom the mental pain that Jennie and Jack must endure as hours drag into days and weeks—unless our sense of empathy is aroused after experiencing the torturous emotion of our own all-consuming grief.

If Jack holds the car door open for Jennie that’s because it is his habit.
Imagine she and then he dropping heavily into their seats.

As the young couple sit, side by side, does an instinctive (protective, defensive) state of shock swallow their minds whole, thus allowing my parents some semblance of sanity as my father starts the engine, glances at traffic and pulls the car away from the curb?

Do they cry as they ride—side by side—toward their apartment, where
A small child and her Grandma, who keeps wringing her hands, waits—

—because over time, cry their eyes dry they certainly will—

Feelinghelplesshopelessconfoundeddisbelievingwhollydevastated—

How does Jack concentrate on the road?

How robotic can the human brain become?

What will happen when conscious awareness breaks through shock’s merciful, but temporary, mental fog?

How will my parents fare when fear strips their minds of security, ties their colons into knots and agony grips their hearts—

And what of their minds—
What of mysteries that remain unanswered?
What of—undeserved—guilt …
What if undeserved guilt is mistakenly adopted by a three year old child?
What might result if guilt is subconsciously repressed for decades?
What if, behind an ever-ready, eager to please smile, a puzzling mystery, in need of piecing together, goes undetected, year after year?

And if we are to reassemble the pieces of this puzzle in hopes that a bigger picture will one day emerge, then what, my friends, must the little girl grow up to understand, concerning the subconscious effects of negatively focused—*Déjà vu …