Thursday, September 20, 2012

Flashback

8:00 am It's been a peaceful morning so far even though I forgot to set the alarm last night.  I woke up in time to feed the horses, chickens and dogs; to make myself breakfast and get ready for Bible Study.  I'm currently relaxing with my coffee.  Then the phone rings.  The caller id says University of New Mexico.  I don't know any reason I should be getting a call from UNM.  I answer.  A woman on the other end says, "Is this the Conklin residence?"  The butterflies think about starting in my stomach.  I say, "yes".  She says, "Are you a parent of Benjaman Conklin?"  The butterflies begin to rattle around, I feel the blood drain from my face and my heart start to pound.  "Yes," I say.  "What is your name, ma'am?" she asks.  "Cheryl," I croak out.

I'm flashing back almost 5 years to that call from Jeremy's mom.  "Is Bo there?" she asked.  It was obvious she was crying.  "He's outside, off our property.  What's wrong?  Can I do something?" I replied.  "Jeremy's been in an accident and he's being flown to Albuquerque, to UNM.  Can you go there?  I'm on my way from El Paso." she said.  Our whole world stopped.  Even then I thought, "Jeremy's an athlete, he's strong, he has a strong heart.  How can I convince his mom to let him recover with us?"  I had no idea that Jeremy was fighting for his life at that very moment.  I had absolutely no idea that in 3 hours a doctor would stand before us and say "We tried to resuscitate him for 45 minutes, far longer than usual because of his health and age"  At this point I'm smiling, thinking "that's my boy!  He's so strong!"  Then the doctor said, "I'm sorry, his heart quit.  There was too much damage to his brain."  WHAT?!  NO!  How can this be happening?  He had just recently broken from the bonds of hate pumped into him his whole life.  He had just, months before, came to visit us of his own free will, because HE wanted to.  The struggle of his childhood and fighting with his mother over Bo's rights as a father were over.  How could this be happening now?  Now that we had a chance to become a true family!  He had his life planned out.  He was happy and secure. Our entire world changed that day.  Our family began to crumble in that instant that Jeremy died.  I still haven't recovered.  Every time Ben leaves the house I worry that he'll never return and that I'll be standing there with the doctor getting the news about him.

Back to today. 8 am It seemed like an eternity before she said, "I'm calling to ask you a few questions about the driver's education class Benjaman took back in January."

I almost screamed at her.  It was all I could do to civilly answer her questions.