Finally one day the hospital called and said Kevin was ready to come home. I was so happy, I grabbed a suit of clothes for him and off I went to bring my baby home. The nurse dressed him in his white shirt and red crawlers and white shoes and soxs. All the nurses raved about Kevin's creamy smooth complextion, his deep blue eyes, and long dark eyelashes. Along with his short blond hair, he was a little doll. When the nurse finished dressing him, she sat him on the side of his bed but he couldn's sit up, he rolled over into a ball.
Before we left for home, the doctor came in to talk to me. He said Kevin had epilepsy and was having over a hundred seizures a day. He said the convulsions and rolling of the eyes were epileptic seizures. Kevin would probably be like this for the rest of his life.
Now I had two invalid children to care for. Am I strong enough to take on this heavy load? In God's name, how can you do this to us? All we wanted was two normal children. Instead, you send us this heavy cross to bear. Please give us the strength and the understanding to undertake this great task. We cannot do it without Your help.
In the months to follow, things got worse. It took all my time just to feed the two children. Jr. ate slowly and each meal would take one hour to feed him. It took over two hours to feed Kevin at each meal. That's three hours spent at every meal just to feed the two boys. Then by the time we had our meal and washed the dishes, it was time to start feeding the first one again. My housework had to be neglected and I was tired and listless and feeling miserable because I was pregnant again and the third baby was due only a short time away.
In January, 1957, Janie was born. Our luck just had to change this time. She was the largest of the children, weighing 8 lbs. 9 oz. She looked like a butterball, compared to Kevin's 6 lbs. and Jr.'s 5 ;bs 14 ozs.
At the age of two years, Janie had to have an operation for an umbilical hernia. She was taken to Children's Hospital for the operation. She came through it all without any complications. The day she came home, she climbed the back yard fence, so she couldn't be feeling too badly. Sometime after this, she had her first asthma attack. It scared me so to see her gasping for breath. This went on for about 5 days. She only had these attacks once or twice a year, but they became more frequent as she got older. Even though Janie had these problems, at least she was normal and that meant everything.
Now I had three babies and the oldest was not quite three years old. All three were in diapers and had to be bottle-fed. Did I ever know what work was? By the end of the day I was exhausted.
Then in March of 1958 tragedy struck again. There was an Asian flu epidemic and we all contacted it. Jr. was the last one to contact it. He was very sick for five days. His temperature was high and he couldn't keep anything on his stomach. He was so touchy he couldn't stand for me to touch him. I called the doctor and he said to bring Jr. to the office. I wrapped him in a heavy blanket and Mom drove us there, only a few blocks from our housse. The doctor examined him and said he had acute bronchitis. He gave me a prescription to have filled and said Jr. would be all right.
That evening I gave him his medicine and fed him a few spoonfuls of soup. He seemed to be feeling better. So I changed him into his pajamas and gave him a good-night kiss and tucked him into his bed.
My precious darling! How was I to know that I would never hold you in my arms again?
I went to Jr.'s bed the next morning to wake him for breakfast. I pulled the covers back and rolled him over to awaken him. Oh God! No! This couldn't be! My Jr. was dead. Only ten more days and he would have celebrated his fourth birthday. To think he died today, March 6, 1958, on my twenty-fourth birthday. This was to be a day of celebration and joy but now it had turned into a day I shall never forget. Nor will I ever be able to celebrate on this day again.
My baby was gone. The end of the world had come. I could not take anymore. I have borne more in these last three years than most people have in a lifetime.
I called my parents and they came to the house within minutes. John was a work so Mom called his boss and asked him to relay the news to John. They had to contact him out on his route, but within about half an hour he was home. When he came in, I could tell he had been crying. He walked right in by Jr.'s bed and spent a few minutes there alone. From the time of Jr.'s death until now, (8 years later) John was never to mention him name again.
Funeral arrangements were made and friends and relatives came by the house off and on all day.
My precious darling! I couldn't go on without him. I felt so close to him, I guess, because he was my first baby, and now he had been taken away from me. The days that followed were unbearable. I couldn't sleep at night and I couldn't stand to be alone.
Weeks passed and with each week the pain eased up some. Then I came upon a poem that seemed to bring me back to reality again. It went like this:
"God's garden has need for a little flower
That has grown for a time here below;
But in tender love, He took it above,
In more favorable climatte to grow."
After all, God did give Jr. to me for almost four years and if He loved my Jr. so much that He wanted him back, who was I to stand in the way? Goodby my precious baby, till we meet again.
Three months went by and we were just beginning to get ourselves straightened out when Kevin became critically ill. He had a fever and was having difficulty in breathing. We rushed him to Children's Hospital where they immediately put him into an oxygen tent. His breathing was heavy and labored. The doctor said his lungs were almost completely filled with liquid. He was in critical condition for two weeks before he started to show improvement.
Kathy
(I will post the conclusion to this story on Sunday)
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