Remembering

Sweat beat down my brow and my heart pounded.  I felt as though my entire soul had been shattered.  Someone had somehow reached into my chest cavity and managed to rip my very soul from my body and twist it as you would a wet towel until the very fabric of my being had been destroyed.    He was just there, my tiny little boy with the bright blue eyes and the golden blond hair.  His little cherubic smile had just graced me as he ran by the kitchen table and headed toward his room. But in an instant he was gone.  The baby I had pleaded for and had spent numerous nights praying for was no where to be seen.  I screamed for the kids to help, my cry piercing the twilight hour of our quiet street.  We ran to the river bank and searched madly for a sign of my little angel.  It seemed like only yesterday we held our breath as we welcomed him into the world and now here we were 16 months later fighting our way through the overgrown backyard in a fight against time to find him.  Time stood still as I bent to find a little blue blanket, the blanket he cuddled with at nap time, the one with the little zebra embroidered delicately on the corner.  He would take his fingers and stroke the silky binding of the blanket as he rubbed his little neck when he was ready for bed.   I shook as I moved the blanket, fearing the worst but pleading with the Lord for strength.  There he was.  His hair was matted with mud and his tiny little frame still only 15 pound the same weight he was when he was four months old.  I cuddled his little body to my chest and tried with all of my might to breathe the life back into him but his chest was motionless.  His little heart had stopped beating and despite the frantic efforts of rescue workers, he was gone. 

I sat up with a start.  It had been one of those dreams from which you’re afraid to awake for fear that it could be real.  I looked to the side of my bed and frantically started making my way through the pristine darkness to the crib of my youngest child.  I grabbed his little blue blanket and reached into his bed to pull the warm body of my Jacob to me.  I trembled as I held him, his warm breath on my neck as I sobbed.  Tears streamed down my face and my heart was filled with a combination of shear panic and relief.  Relief that it had been a dream, panic in case it had been more than just a dream. 

I spent the next day trying to rationalize the dream away.  Jacob was four months old and already he was fifteen pounds.  There was no way that he would be walking in the next little while and so I was sure that by the time he would be able to run past me in the hall he would be much bigger.  We didn’t live by a river.  Our backyard was an acre of sagebrush and in this desert the chances of finding water was rare.  Over the next few months I tried to push the dream out of my mind as we dealt with the real threat of losing our little boy.

He had started losing weight.  His reflux had gone from being a nusaisance be being an urgent problem.  We had been to doctor after doctor.  He would eat bananas and three days later they would shoot from his nose. Bile would ooze from his mouth with the slightest movement.   Whenever he was laid in his crib for a nap he would vomit, covering his little body in the fluids that were meant to have given him nuriousment.  His little arms were covered in scars from the numerous attempts at establishing a pic line.  His little eyes were swollen and his chest raised dramatically with every breath he took. He was withering away and all we could do was watch.  He was down to twelve pounds at eight months old.  He was so busy clinging to life that he was unable to reach his milestones that his brother and sisters met without trouble.  I held his little body close to me as I rocked him in the rickety wooden chair in the corner of a dark pediatric hospital room.  I was exhausted, months of this routine had worn me down.  My other children needed me, my husband needed me and I needed to remember who I even was.   We had transferred our baby from Las Vegas to Salt Lake City in the hopes that they could find an answer. It was hear that despite the fact that the every test and every procedure had been done that we had to face the reality that it was all in the hands of the Lord.  He had proven to the doctors that with a highly restricted diet he was able to gain an insignificant amount of weight but because there was nothing else to be done we were discharged.  We were thrilled to have him home but life was anything but normal.  There were strict guidelines that had to be met.  Around the clock feedings and medications administered at all hours.  Within months however our little boy began to grow. 

Life had settled down enough to look at moving.  We had wanted to buy a home in St. George and my husband planned to commute to Las Vegas daily, just so our children could grow up in a community that we could feel safe in. Jacob was doing well.  The vomiting stopped as mysteriously as it had started.  At sixteen months he was back up to fifteen pounds and was walking circles around us.  We started looking at houses.  My husband fell in love instantly with a home that was in need of a lot of love.  It had a huge lot and the river ran quietly at the rear of the two acres.  There was a horse stable, a pool, an outdoor office and a large play structure. As we stood on the porch of the home a chill ran up my spine and I dismissed it as the wind that suddenly started to flow.  I didn’t like the house, there were two many stairs and the bedrooms seemed dingy.  I wanted the smaller, newer home on the hill.  We went back and forth, each of us listing off the highlights of the house that we wanted.  It wasn’t until our oldest looked at me and said, “Mom, do you remember that dream you had about Jacob and the river?” that we decided not to take any chances and bought the home I had wanted.   Months passed.  We settled into a routine.  G.C. was driving everyday and I was running the kids to practices and games.  The weather was dramatic.  Dark skies streaked across the red mountains casting a purple hue to the majestic mountains surrounding our beautiful city.  On our little hill we didn’t think much of the much needed moisture but after weeks of steady rains we noticed the rivers start to rise.  Before long the rivers had swollen their banks and Southern Utah saw flooding like it had never seen before.  Homes were swept into the rivers and hopes and dreams were washed away with the memories of our neighbors.   We drove one day to the property that my husband had wanted months earlier.  It was gone.  The house was still standing but the back two acres had been eaten away by the monsterous flood.  My heart was still for a moment and I had to will it to continue its beat as I thought of my dream.  At the time I had the dream about the river Jacob was developing without issue.  I had no reason to believe that he would be stunted in his growth. We had rationalized the dream as impossible in part because of the size and age discrepancy.  It became obvious to me that the choices we had made could easily have resulted in a different outcome.  The Spirit had led us away from the home with the river.  My testimony was strengthened as I held my little boy in my arms and once again felt the warmth of his tiny breath upon my neck.  I took a deep breath and savored the smell of baby powder and graham crackers on his little body.  I thanked my Father in Heaven for the gift of revelation and the Holy Ghost.